


son of man, you know only a heap of broken images

by delhuillier



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: "Lovecraft lite" AU, Eldritch Abomination Naga, M/M, can you say: g r a t u i t o u s a n g s t
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-19 11:26:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delhuillier/pseuds/delhuillier
Summary: Grima is not as trapped as he seems.





	1. Hecatomb

The dragon has six eyes, though you wouldn’t know it from watching him during the daily tests. Then he has two only. Two human ones, you could say, but Chrom would never think they belonged to a human. They are red as coldblood, red as the flesh of a sliced-open pomegranate (and they used to be dark and warm and lovely, they used to be Robin’s), have slitted pupils, and sometimes they shine if you cast light on them the right way, like Chrom’s do.

_Tapetum lucidum_ , Miriel called the shine, when she was in his office to give a report a week after Grima was awakened and then by Naga bound. _You may have seen it in specimens of Felis catus and Canis familiaris._ Whatever that meant.

But the dragon has six eyes. When he is amused by something, when he is pleased, they come open, four slits of red, two above his eyebrows, two below his normal eyes. Like the eyes of a contented cat. 

He’s looking at Chrom now, through the magically-reinforced Plexiglas, and Chrom counts them: one, two, three, four, five, six. The dragon sits perched on a chair in his little cell, his toes with their sharp black nails curled over its edge, his six feathery wings trailing on the floor. The harsh light from the uncovered bulbs above his head scatters off the collar clamped around his neck, forged from thunderbolt iron and Naga’s power, is swallowed by the black scales dusting the pale column of his neck and disappearing underneath the neckline of his thin white shirt.

“You’re here alone,” Grima says. His voice is still Robin’s, but there’s another, subtler layer to it now, something that rumbles deep in Chrom’s guts. It reminds Chrom, uncomfortably, of Naga.

“Not quite,” Frederick says, from where he stands close behind Chrom. He holds the tablet in his hand that operates the collar around Grima’s neck: with a touch of a finger he can inflict terrible pain, or plunge the dragon into unconsciousness. Incarnating into a human vessel was not the smartest thing to do, it seems.

Grima snickers, his sharp teeth flashing in the light like naked blades. “Oh, Frederickson? I didn’t see you there. So many visitors today.”

Chrom looks back at Frederick, sees his lips pressed into a thin line. It gratifies him, somewhat, to know that he’s not the only one affected—that Frederick, too, can be hurt by Grima’s aping of Robin’s mannerisms.

Grima unfolds from the chair, and stalks closer to the full-length window into his cell. “Child of Naga, what do you want?”

There are echoes of Robin in the way the dragon folds his arms, in the way his lips curve into a delicate smirk, and Chrom for a moment is unable to speak. Words tangle in his throat and he’s remembering the first time he and Robin ever kissed, by the pool behind the palace, remembering the droplets of water glittering in the hollow of Robin’s throat, remembering how the setting sun painted Robin’s white hair in swaths of gold. The warmth of him. 

He can’t do this. He doesn’t know what he expected.

“Nothing,” Chrom says. “It’s nothing. Forget it.” He backs away from the window into the cell, making to leave.

The smirk on Grima’s—Robin’s—lips acquires a crueller edge. “Nothing? Too bad. My vessel was so happy to see you.”

Chrom freezes, and the hum of the overhead lights is like the buzzing of flies in his ears. 

“You’re lying,” he says, and then he’s at the window again and his fist comes down on it so hard he feels it up to his elbow. “Damn you, Grima. Don’t you dare lie to me about something like that.”

The Fell Dragon laughs in his face. “Didn’t Naga tell you anything? Robin and I are one. He cannot speak his mind, of course, now that I have been awakened, but he is here. Buried deep. He yearns for you.”

Grima opens his mouth to say more but suddenly his clawed fingers are scrabbling at the collar and agony strikes his face like a lightning bolt. He folds up without a sound, mouth gaping in a soundless scream, and twitches like a landed fish. His eyes find Chrom’s, and there’s something pleading there—

“Frederick, stop!” Chrom orders without thinking. “You’re hurting him.”

Immediately, Frederick removes his finger from the tablet. “Milord,” he says quietly. “My apologies.”

But Chrom knows that closed-off look on Frederick’s face, the one he uses whenever he doesn’t want his personal feelings to be known to Chrom or Lissa. It tells him he’s a damn idiot.

Chrom takes a deep breath, and turns his back on Grima. “No, Frederick,” he says. “I should apologise. You did the right thing.”

Frederick nods. But all he says is: “As you say, milord.”

Chrom gestures towards the door. As he and Frederick depart, he glances back one last time at the Fell Dragon. He hasn’t gotten up—he just lies there on the cold floor, in the cheap shirt and pants he was given when he was imprisoned in the laboratory for research purposes. The red eyes meet green, and there’s no smirk or sneer on Grima’s face now. In fact, his face seems empty of anything at all.

Chrom shivers. Sometimes Robin’s face looked like that too—when he had to talk to Validar, mostly, or that time when Chrom, his mind full to bursting from information from Naga, had pressed him too much about the tattoo on the back of his right hand.

“Milord?” Frederick says, disrupting Chrom’s reverie.

“Sorry, Frederick,” Chrom says, brushing past him in his hurry to get out the door. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Let’s go home.”

=

Grima appeared on Earth once before, a thousand years ago, but was driven back by Naga and Her children, who in destroying his physical form banished him to some higher plane where he lurked and seethed and raged for the next ten centuries. However, unbeknownst to the first of Chrom’s bloodline, like Naga, Grima, too, had sown his seed upon this planet.

Generations passed, and eventually Robin was born—Grima’s fell blood thick and foul in his veins, strong enough in him that he could bear being the vessel for Grima’s return. And Grima did return, in a ritual sanctified by the spilled blood of a child of Naga: Emmeryn, assassinated in the palace by Validar himself.

But they were ready for the Fell Dragon, this time. Naga had guided Her children’s preparations just as Grima had. In the moment of Grima’s awakening, in that moment he slipped on a human skin, he made himself vulnerable.

Naga bound him, Her ancient foe. Chrom hadn’t been able to do it himself—couldn’t bear inflicting harm on the person he loved. But to see the divine dragon Naga rise from the earth in all Her glory to do battle for humanity’s sake, that perhaps made up for his failings. 

She was the first to call Herself divinity, and She was the first to call Herself dragon, and She is worshipped as Naga because the human mouth cannot reproduce the sounds of Her true name. She is eternal, and under Her rule Ylisse has known only peace and prosperity. 

Naga dwells in a temple outside the high walls of Ylisstol, a sacred city that has sat empty for more than a thousand years, barred to all, even Her own children. Within the temple, elegant, curving flights of marble stairs take you deep beneath the earth, where Naga waits.

Chrom is ushered into the near-darkness by two of Her attendants, white-robed women wearing masks over enucleated eyes. They tell him, “She has just fed,” as a third wheels out a young man on a stretcher. Chrom can hardly look at him, all blanched flesh draped over a sad pile of bones.

He removes his tinted glasses, glad for the relief for his light-sensitive eyes. Naga sits in the back of Her chamber, imposing in Her vastness: his gaze traces the silhouette of a bifurcated tail, a many-jointed limb tipped with six clawed fingers. 

The attendants leave and the doors close and true darkness falls. Chrom’s eyes prefer the darkness to the light, but in this deep night, he can only pick out shapes and the suggestion of movement.

In the blackness, Naga stirs. Eyes—six of them—slit open, an inner phosphorescence giving them a dark green lustre, and wings—six of them—unfold, warped and chiropteran. Her voice is deep and sonorous, its resonant tones undercut by a gut-wrenching rumble just at the edge of Chrom’s hearing. 

_My child. My sweet child._

Chrom kneels, trying to hide his trembling. He braces himself as Her mind reaches out to envelop his own. Vertigo rushes up like a tide of dark water, and he can hardly get any air.

During the Miracle of Ylisstol, when Naga and Her children first descended to this planet more than eleven centuries ago, it is said that the first of his bloodline was chosen because she was able to receive Naga’s counsel when others could not. Exalted, they called her, this woman who did not go mad when Naga touched her mind.

Despite being a descendant of the first Exalt, Chrom sometimes feels like he will go mad when Naga speaks to him. In any case, it always leaves him, like today, shaking and dry-mouthed, with sweaty palms and a pounding heart. 

He stumbles from the chamber, squinting against the light’s glare, and fumbles with his glasses. A steady hand—Frederick’s—helps him put them on.

“Thank you, Frederick,” Chrom says, when he’s sure he can speak without screaming.

“Of course, milord,” Frederick says. 

Behind them, Naga’s blinded attendants drag the stone doors of the chamber shut. Seeing is believing, as the saying goes, and their lack of sight protects them from much. 

“Did you learn anything, milord?” Frederick asks.

“No luck,” replies Chrom. “She wants us to keep studying him in hopes of ending the quarantine, but wouldn’t tell me anything about where he came from or what he wants, really.”

“I’m sure She has Her reasons,” says Frederick, stolidly, earnestly.

“Of course.”

Chrom isn’t angry, or even annoyed, with the fact that Naga told him nothing about Grima’s origins. He doesn’t really care about the abyss Grima crawled from ages past. Nor did he care what drove Grima, beyond his desire to end the Exalted bloodline and kill Naga.

No, he cared about something else. About Robin. 

He’d asked: _Can he be saved_? 

And there was silence. Just silence. For once, Naga had no counsel to give.


	2. Recollection

Lissa’s still up when he gets back to their temporary residence, and she pokes her head into the hall when she hears the door open. She watches him with her mismatched eyes, one a normal grey, one dark green with a slitted pupil, and after he’s done removing his shoes and placing them in the rack at the door, she asks quietly, “Did you see him, Chrom?”

Chrom raises his arms for Frederick to remove his coat, and when that’s done, he says, “Yeah. I did.”

“You did?” Lissa repeats. Quickly she comes further into the hall, and the line of scales along her jaw coruscate in the low light that’s kept on only because of Frederick. “Oh, Chrom, how is he? He’s not—is he?”

Chrom sucks in a breath. Then: “He’s gone, Lissa. I’m pretty sure, at least. We can’t—I don’t know if we’ll be able to—”

He cuts himself off, painfully aware of how his voice had started to tremble. And are those tears stinging the corners of his eyes? Gods.

At least Lissa’s crying, too. As dramatically as ever: great gasping sobs, loud sniffs.

“First Emm,” she says, “and now this. It’s not _fair_.”

He and Lissa hug. He loops his arms around her middle, careful to avoid the tiny, malformed wing jutting through a hole cut out of her shirt, and tries to hug her as he thinks Emm would have. Supportive. Gentle. In a way that tells the other person you empathise, you sympathise, you care. In short, doing all the things Chrom has always been terrible at doing. 

“You know what the worst part is,” Lissa says, after she’d mostly finished crying. She gives Chrom a watery smile, showing off a mouth where human and sharp dragon teeth compete for space. “He always knew what to say at a time like this, y’know? He was good at that.”

“Yeah,” Chrom says, trying to return her smile even as the use of past tense cuts into him like a knife to the gut. He tries to keep his expression firm, but every time he thinks he’s steadied it, it threatens to dissolve into tears like a wet piece of paper in the rain.

Lissa soon leaves him be, clearly picking up on his exhaustion, and goes to her room—probably to cry more, unless he’s missed his guess. Frederick helps him undress, and when he undoes the bindings keeping Chrom’s wings tied up close against the plane of his back, Chrom lets out an audible groan.

His sister has always been proud of her wing, her eye, her teeth: The Brand had never appeared on her in the first place, so when other physical signs of Naga’s blood started growing from her flesh, she welcomed them wholeheartedly. She went to school with her shirts cut open at the back, showed off her scales to anyone who demonstrated the slightest interest, and wore the bandages and plasters on her lips where her own razor-sharp teeth scored her flesh with pride.

Chrom, on the other hand, has never liked his scales, his wings, his eyes that hated light. Maybe that’s because he’s always had the Brand. 

He remembers when his scales first started coming in, remembers the abraded skin, the blood that would ooze up from around scales’ rough edges whenever he made the slightest movement. He remembers how painful it had been, at first, to keep his wings bound—relative to Naga’s, they weren’t large at all, and yet they were still large enough to be an inconvenience. 

The features he inherited from Naga have always been a hindrance to him: whether in the form of the deep-seated ache that always settles in his back after a long day with bound wings, or in how people always know him as a royal by sight. No matter what he does, people refuse to treat him normally—which is what he wants most.

The first time he’d had the courage to show it all to Robin, it had been a warm day, the day they first kissed: summer a year ago, if Chrom’s memory is right. They’d gone out to the pool; Robin had been spending his time happily paddling around in it, while Chrom, awkward and hot in his dark glasses, a long-sleeved shirt, and long pants, sat near its edge. 

After a while, Robin had had enough. He sculled over to the pool’s edge and put his elbows on the heated concrete, hoisting his slim body partway out of the water. “Come on, Chrom,” he said, “the water’s fine.”

He’d already started to tan—he tanned beautifully, a warm light brown. It was the Plegian blood in him, Robin always said. 

“Kind of don’t have a swimsuit on,” Chrom replied, lifting his glasses a little despite the glare, just so Robin could tell he was looking at him.

Robin snorted. “Oh, please. Get in. I can tell you’re having a terrible time over there. I feel kind of bad having this pool all to myself.”

A part of Chrom told him to hold his ground, but another, much bigger part of him said, how can you resist that smile? 

“Promise not to—laugh, or anything, okay?”

“Uh, okay?” 

Left with no other option, and before he could convince himself otherwise, Chrom yanked off his shirt in a series of jerky motions, nearly knocking his glasses off in the process.

Robin lifted an eyebrow as Chrom struggled to unfasten the bindings around his wings. His gaze, unerring, unflinching, drew a flush to Chrom’s cheeks and made the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably. Chrom couldn’t tell what Robin’s thinking, though that wasn’t really anything new; Robin always had a knack for hiding his thoughts.

“What?” Chrom said, unable to bear it any longer.

“You really thought I’d be weirded out be something like that?” Robin said, meaning the scales clustering under Chrom’s collarbones, following the lines of his ribs, walking in thin lines up his sides. Meaning the wings, small and pathetic.

“Who wouldn’t be?” asked Chrom. He dropped the bindings to the concrete with a clatter and bent to roll up his pant legs in order to hide his face.

“I mean, I know you’re a child of Naga, Chrom,” Robin said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “It’s kind of expected you’d have, you know. Scales and wings. Right?”

Robin dropped back under the water and kicked off from the side. He surfaced a few feet away from the poolside, and tucked white hair, sopping wet, behind his ear. Chrom slipped into the pool, and swam over to join him, comforted by the soft slip of water over his wings. He still felt a little silly, seeing as he’d kept his dark glasses on, but he’d committed and he couldn’t just turn back now.

“You know what I also think?” Robin said when Chrom was by his side.

“What now, Robin?”

“I think that—may I?” Robin lifted a hand, gave Chrom an inquisitive look.

“May you what—oh.” Chrom swallowed nervously. He understood. “I guess, if you want. I don’t mind.”

Robin reached out and placed the pads of his fingers on the cluster of scales under Chrom’s left collarbone. In the sun, the scales glittered like the inside of a kaleidoscope, radiating colour.

“I think,” Robin said, “that they’re beautiful.”

Chrom felt shaky and warm and like he was about to fly apart, all at the same time. Robin still hadn’t taken his hand away. “Come on, Robin. You don’t mean that.”

“I don’t? You know me better than I know myself, apparently,” Robin hummed. “I think it’s amazing. You’re really the son of Naga, these scales say. You’re special.”

“Oh,” Chrom said, all of the other words he knew gone out of his head in that instant.

Robin smiled at him, that soft, open smile he only ever showed to Chrom, and let his hand settle flat onto Chrom’s chest. He was so close, and he seemed otherworldly in that moment: His face was too perfect, smooth and unblemished and tanned a flattering brown, and in the black of his eyes the sun danced. 

The moment broke, with the violent abruptness of shattering glass: Robin ducked away, slipped underwater, and fled to the other side of the pool. Chrom thought he could see a flush colouring Robin’s ears as he hauled himself onto the dry concrete. 

“I think I’m done for today.”

“Are you kidding me?” Chrom said, half because he’d gotten his pants wet for pretty much nothing, half because he was desperate to keep Robin here, so he could, in his fumbling way, find confirmation about what the hell Robin meant by all that. “Robin, I just got in. Don’t leave me here all alone.”

But he got out again anyway, and accepted the towel Robin handed him, but when Robin tried to go back inside he caught him by the shoulder and told him to stay.

“What’s wrong, Chrom?” Robin asked. He couldn’t quite meet Chrom’s gaze. “You’re not angry or anything, are you?”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Chrom said. “I’m not—it’s just—listen, I could never be angry at you, Robin. Okay?”

“O-kay?”

Chrom took a deep breath, then another. Then he put out one of his hands, and when he felt Robin’s smaller hand touch his own he tangled their fingers together, a blush creeping across his cheeks. 

“You meant it,” Chrom said. He knew Robin well enough to have been able to read between the lines. _Beautiful. Amazing. You’re special._

( _I love you._ )

Robin nodded. He was blushing furiously, down to his shoulders, but he spoke without hesitation. “Yeah. Every part of it.” He took an unsteady breath. “Even though it’s impossible. A nobody like me and a child of Naga? People wouldn’t think it’s right. Gods, Naga Herself probably wouldn’t think it’s right.”

“I don’t care,” Chrom said, his entire body running hot, humming with delight.

Robin’s expression tightened in distress. “Chrom, I really don’t think—”

“I said I don’t care!” Chrom said. “Please, Robin, let me say my piece.”

“Fine. I’m listening.”

Chrom closed his eyes, trying to rein in the thoughts galloping round and round in his head. “I know we met under probably the weirdest circumstances. I know we’ve only known each other for maybe half a year at the longest.”

“Eight months, actually,” Robin said. “By this August.”

Chrom grinned. “Okay, eight months, then. Still a short time when I think that you’re probably the best friend I’ve ever known. I’m special? You are, Robin—you’ve been so good to us, to me and Frederick and Lissa and Emm—did you know Emm talks about you a lot? She thinks you’re great, Robin. The _Exalt_.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Robin said. He pressed a hand to his mouth, turning his face to the side to hide the deep blush on his cheeks. “You can stop now.”

“Nope, not going to,” Chrom said. “I’m going to tell you how I feel even if your head explodes in embarrassment. You started this, by the way.”

Robin rolled his eyes, but nothing could hide the smile tugging at his lips. “I did not.”

“So, Robin,” Chrom said, “ I guess I’m saying… Well, my sister always followed her heart, so now I want to follow mine. What I want to ask you—what I mean is—”

“You’re hopeless,” Robin said. “Do you know how cliché that sounded?”

Chrom let out a shaky laugh. “Oh, shut up.”

And then Robin tugged Chrom’s hand to pull him closer, his other hand settling at the nape of Chrom’s neck, and Chrom curved an arm around his waist and—

and they kissed. It wasn’t romantic or good or coördinated in the slightest; their noses got in the way and their teeth more than once knocked together but Chrom couldn’t bring himself to care. Because Robin liked him as much as he liked Robin. The good, kind, smart-as-a-whip Robin loved him back. And that made up, and then some, for all their inexperienced fumbling.

“Chrom,” Robin said, after they came up for air, “are you sure?”

Fiercely, Chrom said: “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

Robin smiled weakly, and let his fingers drift to the tiny jags that follow the line of Chrom’s spine. “I was so lucky it was you that found me. I think about that a lot. And now, I guess, I’m even luckier.”

Except Robin isn’t lucky at all, Chrom thinks.

Not with that thing inside him. Now, the Robin he used to know is gone, drowned in the maelstrom that was the mind of the dragon, Grima. Now he’s Robin, interrupted. In the palace, there are books, still marked, that Robin wanted to finish but now will never; clothes he left behind one night will still be folded neatly in closets, and maybe one day, when the quarantine is lifted, Chrom will come across that watch Robin misplaced after Emm’s last birthday party. 

Just like Emm, Robin cannot live out a normal life with Chrom and Lissa. Not anymore. Because he and Grima are one.


	3. Now Entering Plato's Cave

Chrom spends the next morning on the phone in the kitchen, making arrangements for Emm’s memorial service the week after next while Lissa, in sweats and a too-large shirt, watches TV in the living room with the volume turned up high enough that she can’t hear what he’s saying. By the end of it all, he’s sick of hearing the usual bromides and thinks he’s going to scream if he hears another person say _I’m sorry for your loss_.

He hangs up before the last person is even finished saying their goodbyes, and puts his head in his hands, feeling wrung out like a cheap dishcloth. He’s tired of thinking about how they won’t have a body for the funeral, because the area around the palace has been quarantined, sealed off by walls built by both human hands and Naga’s power. He’s just tired.

The same devastation behind the quarantine walls had happened in the Plegian capital a thousand years ago, or so he’s been told: Grima’s appearance then had left the land forever scarred. The dead walked again; accounts describe desperate people losing themselves in the twisted streets of the city, following the soft whispers of their dead mother, of their murdered sister, of the baby expired in their womb. 

And that isn’t even the worst of what happened. He’s seen pictures, brought back over the centuries: stumbling things researchers describe as being descended from scarabs and sycamore trees, sedentary masses of stone and putrefied flesh, the scrabbling creatures that researchers had called “former humans”.

The blight has only spread over the intervening centuries, devouring more and more of the Plegian heartland. Refugees with haunted looks who scream in the night and refuse to go underground into the Metro tunnels have flooded Ylisse in the last few decades. Grima left a grievous wound in the world when he appeared, and it has not healed.

Now, it seems like New Ylisstol might suffer the same fate. Already they are feeling the effects of it: Guards around the walls have reported attempts to scale them, and describe people desperately begging with them to let them enter the quarantined area, so they can see their family again. The guards themselves have to be rotated out almost weekly; those left by the walls too long show a tendency to disappear without a trace, or to die abruptly in their sleep.

Well, that’s why they have Grima, he supposes. Hopefully their testing on him will finally reveal a way to dispel the blight he leaves behind. Chrom prays that will be so. He can’t fathom what he’ll do if they can’t stop the spread. 

Chrom goes to the laboratory again, despite Frederick’s protests. “The government can run itself for a couple of days, Frederick,” he snaps. “They don’t need me if Naga has nothing to say.”

His position is inviolate anyway. Only the children of Naga can be Her voice without needing to first brutalise themselves beyond repair as Her attendants do. The ministers need him, or at least his sister.

Miriel and one of her co-workers—a grinning Plegian haematologist with the same pale hair and the same slender build Robin has—have new information for him. He is subjected to graphs and charts, tables with values set side-by-side for comparisons, and some truly dreadful puns courtesy of the Plegian, whose name is Henry…something. Chrom hadn’t caught his last name.

By the end of it all, he’s more confused than ever. As Miriel clicks off the projector and sits at the conference table along with her co-worker, Chrom leans forward and says, “So what I’m getting from all this is that…Grima is like me?”

“In that his wings and superfluous eyes violate known natural laws in the same fashion yours do, milord,” Miriel replies. “There is, to put it in simple terms, no way he should be able to utilise them the way he does. There is no additional structure, muscular or otherwise, to accommodate their presence.”

She opens the manila folder by her side and withdraws a stack of X-ray images. “Furthermore, there are…these.”

Chrom flips through them: silhouettes in the shape of wings, filled in with solid white. “Are you sure there wasn’t something wrong with the machine?” he asks. “I mean, this is…”

“Impossible,” Miriel says. “At least, impossible if we operate under the assumption that his wings are like those of birds or bats. These images suggest that assumption is groundless. And I need not say we saw the same results when studying your appendages.”

“His blood’s a dead ringer for yours, too,” Henry adds. “I thought I’d mixed up the samples at first.” He sniggers. “Makes you wonder what Grima and Naga were up to a thousand years ago.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Miriel says, but all that makes Henry do is laugh some more. 

“Wait, hold on. Back up.” 

Chrom clenches his hands together, takes a deep breath. He tilts his head up, meeting Miriel’s gaze. “You’re saying his blood is like mine? Exalted blood? That can’t be.”

“The evidence contradicts that assertion. In the form he is in now, Grima is indistinguishable, disregarding superficial differences such as wing structure, from a child of Naga.” Miriel pauses, adjusts, her glasses, and adds, “I caution you not to leap to conclusions, milord. Conventional scientific tools are, as much as I am loath to admit it, ineffective at studying the more intangible properties of being. As you may have seen from those X-rays.”

“And we haven’t heard anything from the mages yet?”

“Not yet, no.”

“They’ve been having a lot of trouble,” Henry cuts in. “Spells going wrong. New instruments falling apart for no reason. Ingredients going bad. That sort of thing. Ricken told me they haven’t been able to do anything with the Grima feathers they’ve collected because spells don’t do what they’re supposed to around them. Like the magic isn’t coöperating.” He grins, showing all his teeth. “Isn’t that _interesting_?”

It occurs to Chrom then that that is the same reason why magic cannot be used around Naga. Some old mage had written about it, a thousand years ago, describing how the magic would squirm and slip from your grasp when in Her presence. How it felt almost hostile.

With that thought niggling at him, he goes to see Grima.

=

“Welcome back, child of Naga,” Grima says when he sees Chrom. “A pleasure as always.”

The dragon is no different from the day before, save for criss-crossing bandages wrapped around the crook of one arm. Perhaps he looks a little more haggard, a little more unwashed. Chrom can’t bring himself to look for long upon all the evidence of tests run and experiments performed—despite everything, Grima is still in Robin’s body. He still has Robin’s narrow shoulders and boyish face and slender wrists, and when he’s in pain, it will be Robin’s lips pulled into a grimace, it will be Robin’s voice twisted into whimpers and gasps and groans.

He realises he’s staring. Like a godsforsaken idiot.

Grima’s smirking, an expression just as sharp and dangerous as his teeth. He prompts Chrom gently, using the tone of voice one might use with a child: “Tell me, why have you come?”

Unsure which pair of eyes he’s supposed to meet, Chrom looks away, towards the small cot in the corner of Grima’s cell. There are no blankets on it, and there’s no pillow, either.

Chrom takes a deep breath, and drags his gaze back around to Grima. “I wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Curiosity is quite a nasty flaw,” Grima says, tucking himself into the same chair as before, “but I suppose I can’t stop you. Whether I’ll give you answers—well. We’ll just see.”

Of course, that Chrom wanted to ask Grima questions was a lie. The reason he’s here is much, much simpler than that, even if he’s not willing to admit what it is.

He casts about for a question to pose, the back of his neck prickling with discomfort as the silence grows longer. Finally, remembering his conversation with Naga the night before, Chrom asks: “Where did you come from? I’ve been told that…your blood—Robin’s blood—is like mine. But that’s just ridiculous.”

Ridiculous because if true, then Robin should have displayed qualities like Chrom’s—wings, scales, that sort of thing—even before Grima took up residence in his body. Ridiculous because there is no way Grima and Naga share the same blood.

Grima smiles a thin little smile. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Grima lifts a shoulder and lets it fall in a very, very human gesture. “You tell me, child of Naga. What might it mean, that you and my vessel had the same blood running in your veins?”

He sits forward then, resting his elbows on his knees, and the weight of his six-eyed gaze is almost unbearable. “I am a dragon. In fact, I am like your Naga, in more ways than one. But is that all?”

There is a strange feeling scrabbling around in his gut, something like nervous interest with a dash of profound anxiety, but Chrom ignores it. Instead, he lets out a derisive laugh. “You tell me.”

The chuckle that comes from Grima’s mouth is so much like one of Robin’s—soft and husky, not loud—that it makes Chrom’s heart judder in his chest.

Gods, what’s wrong with him? Of course Grima is going to sound like Robin. He shouldn’t be reacting like this, showing weakness in front of Naga’s old enemy, no matter how crippled he is.

“Clever,” Grima says. “But even so, I think I’ll let you ponder that yourself. It will be more interesting that way, don’t you think? It’s always more satisfying to solve a puzzle on your own.”

Chrom shuts his eyes. When he’d heard of Grima as a child, he’d imagined a comic-book villain, with no personality to speak of beyond his maniacal laughter and his grand, evildoer proclamations. Not…this. 

He wishes Grima were like he first imagined him to be. Then this would all be so, so much easier.

“Tell me one more thing,” Chrom says. His hands curl unconsciously into fists as he forces the words from his mouth. “You said—you said Robin was still there. Is that true?”

“It is,” Grima says. “He and I are one, as I have said before. In a sense, he has been the Fell Dragon since the day he was born. Poor Robin. He was more right than he knew when he said it wouldn’t be right for him to be with a child of Naga.”

Chrom’s breath catches in his throat. “Don’t say that. I never cared about that. Not even after—” _Naga told me about him_ , he doesn’t say. 

“Naga would’ve,” Grima says conversationally. “She would have found a way to dispose of him for you. I promise you that. The last thing she would have wanted is for one of her children to be so tainted.”

Chrom’s response is more born of reflex than of true conviction. “You don’t know that. You don’t. You don’t know Her.”

“I do,” replies Grima, and his tone this time is entirely serious. His smirk has faded away, leaving his face barren and empty. “Rather too well.”

Chrom opens his mouth, but shuts it again when he has nothing to say; and Grima speaks, instead.

“I imagine the reason you asked about my origins is because she wouldn’t tell you anything, isn’t that right?” Grima sneers. “Of course it is. Do you know,” he says casually, “what she said to me when she struck me down?”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Grima’s not looking at Chrom, now, not really: Robin’s eyes stare off into the middle distance. There’s something uncharacteristically fragile about the expression on his face, and it makes Chrom, despite himself, want to comfort him. Because on the outside, it’s just Robin, small and vulnerable.

Grima puts the words into place slowly, carefully, as if he’s afraid they’ll cut him. And his reluctance conveys all that he cannot say.

“She said, _You should not exist_. Imagine that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How pretentious can my chapter titles get?
> 
> /cracks knuckles
> 
> Just you wait.


	4. Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Grima Mori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: child abuse (vaguely implied)

State business means Chrom doesn’t have a chance to go back to the laboratory before Emm’s memorial service, and the one night he might’ve had time to go check up on the progress the research team is making, he has to write up the speech he’ll give. It’s like pulling teeth.

Not that there’s a lack of things to write about. His sister raised him and Lissa, after his father died in childbirth when Lissa was born, and it was because of her so many Plegians could find refuge her, safe from the spreading blight. It was because of her he and Robin met in the first place, and because of her they’d been able to be together in the end.

If only Grima weren’t in Robin’s body now; it’d make a good story, and a happy one, to talk about how he and Robin met, and how it was only possible because of how Emm raised him.

When he said to Robin they’d met in the “weirdest of circumstances,” he doesn’t think he’d been exaggerating all that much. What could be weirder than in the middle of the night, in a park near the palace, on New Year’s Eve?

Chrom grins to himself as he recalls how much Frederick protested when Chrom stopped the car to go check on the person curled up under a tree, wrapped in a pea coat and using their backpack as a pillow. _He could be a danger to your life, milord. There is no need to lower yourself to care for the homeless. We can simply alert the authorities and be on our way._

“You’re such a worrier, Frederick. There is pretty much no chance this person’s out for my life,” Chrom said. He nudged the door open and crunched through the snow over to the young man—much younger than he thought—asleep on the ground. “Anyway, Emm’s always talking about how we could do more for the people—and she’s opening the palace tonight for anyone that needs a place to sleep. So why waste time getting the authorities when we could just bring him in ourselves?”

“Milord,” Frederick said from the driver’s seat, exasperation weighting each and every syllable, “this is the height of naïveté. He’s clearly Plegian.”

Chrom rolled his eyes. “Frederick, we have to do something. Do you really propose we leave him out here in the cold for hours just because you think he’s going to get the car seats dirty?”

“Milord, we cannot host every single unfortunate you come across in the city.”

“I’m not saying we should,” said Chrom. “But he is here and so are we, so it’d be pretty stupid to just ignore him.”

A muffled groan alerted Chrom to the fact his arguing with Frederick had woken the young man up. Almond-shaped eyes blinked open, still hazy with sleep, and Chrom smiled. 

“Hey,” he said, “I see you’re awake now. You know, there are probably better places to take a nap than on the ground in the middle of winter.”

He offered a hand, and the boy took it. He was quite pretty, Chrom noticed, as he pulled him up: fine, delicate features, a soft mouth. 

The boy’s gaze sharpened as he took in Chrom’s face, and then a look of horror spread across his face. He let go of Chrom’s hand as if scalded, and his mouth worked for a few seconds before words finally came out. “Prince _Chrom_?” he said, and then slapped a hand over his mouth before removing it just as quickly. “I mean—Your Highness! I am _so_ sorry. Am I—have I—gods, please excuse my awful manners—”

“Chrom’s just fine,” Chrom said. “I’ve never been one for formalities.” Ignoring Frederick’s long-suffering sigh, he continued: “Anyway, what are you doing out here? You’ll freeze to death.”

The boy opened his mouth, closed it again. He fidgeted with one of his sleeves—a sign that Chrom learned later meant that he was lying, or at least avoiding the truth. “Well, it’s—it’s kind of a long story. None of the shelters had beds left, so. It’s not even that cold.”

“Good news for you, then,” Chrom said. “Emm’s opening the palace tonight for anyone that needs a place to sleep, seeing as it’s New Year’s Eve and all. Come on—I’ll give you a ride.”

“A ride?” the boy repeated, eyes stretching wide. “No, I couldn’t possibly—you’re the _prince_.”

“So I am. And, well, seeing as I’m the prince and all… Should I order you to come with me to the palace, instead?”

The boy’s eyes go even wider, if that’s possible. Then he gives in. “Oh, um. No. I mean, I’ll come.”

And that was that, or at least Chrom thought so then. Robin slept at the palace and disappeared the morning after, leaving only a note of thanks. Winter melted into spring and Robin was tucked into the curio case of memory, only to be taken out for idle study when some unconnected trigger reminded Chrom of that cold New Year’s Eve night.

In January, Emm had pushed for him to pursue classes, at least part-time, at one of New Ylisstol’s local universities. Chrom _had_ graduated from one of the best private secondary schools in the city (though sometimes he wondered if that was because he was royalty) but Emm had said, with that gentle but firm smile on her face, “We have a duty to learn, Chrom. For our people.” 

Chrom had never been able to refuse his elder sister anything. On her advice, he’d chosen a course in Ylissean history, and another in international relations, and had gone to school when the spring term started. 

So it was on a mild March day when Chrom, strolling along the edge of the tree-lined quadrangle in order to meet Frederick with the car at its other end, passed Robin reading in the shade. Robin glanced up and Chrom glanced down, and their gazes stuck as both of them, at the same moment, realised who the other was.

“Hey,” Chrom said. He pushed his glasses up and raised an eyebrow. “Is that you, Robin?” he asked, even though he knew full well that it was.

Robin’s neutral expression seemed etched in ice for what felt like an eternity but what was perhaps only a few seconds. Then it melted into a soft smile whose corners drooped, weighed down by nervous uncertainty. “I’m surprised you remember me, Prince Chrom.”

“How could I forget?”

The corners of Robin’s eyes crinkled as by degrees his smile became more easy, more natural. He marked his place in his book with a gloved hand and laid it flat on his lap. “Point well taken,” he said. “It’s just, the _prince_ , remembering me? It feels pretty weird.”

“Well, considering how we met, it’s really not that weird at all,” replied Chrom. And before he could strangle the impulse, he added, making it up as he goes along: “Are you hungry? I’m going to get something to eat. Want to come along?”

“That’s—” Robin stopped, and then gave a low chuckle, soft and husky, not loud. “Actually, how could I say no? Sure. I’d love to come.”

At first it was shared lunches during school days, then it was dinners at the palace, then it was weekends spent inside with Robin, studying and slacking off in unequal measure. Lissa took to him immediately, and Emmeryn soon after: Robin was not eccentric, and didn’t stand out much, like a shadow cast during twilight, but he was patient and good-natured, and always had a smile ready for anyone who needed one. Even Frederick caved eventually, won over by little more than a nickname and dogged persistence.

He had a tendency to bottle things up, and sometimes reacted badly to people trying to dig into his situation at home, and could be very cutting when he wanted to be, but he was still Robin, and above all, before everything else, Robin was _kind_. That, Chrom thinks, is why he fell in love with him in the first place. He offered acceptance, no strings attached; he offered a shoulder to cry on, an ear for listening, whenever one was needed. 

(Chrom supposes that it was living with Validar that taught Robin what not to do, how not to be, how not to act. Validar—Robin’s father in name only.

He remembers how Robin described Validar, once, in one of the rare moments he chose to speak about his family. Strict. No other word could have said so much by saying so little. Strict. Violence in its three stop consonants, single-syllable abrupt. Like a blow to the face.)

Robin fit in with Chrom’s family like a missing piece finally restored to its puzzle. For a year and some months, it had been a golden, glittering time, suffused with warmth, punctuated by late-night trips to convenience stores during all-nighters, by ice cream cones dripping over sunburnt fingers, by summer afternoons spent by the pool and lazy winter mornings spent inside, tangled up with each other, by _Robin_. 

Then Validar murdered Emm—pushed her off the roof of the palace, in sight of every news camera in New Ylisstol—and Grima awoke and now Robin lives locked away in his own mind, imprisoned just like Grima is.

Chrom inhales deeply and pressed the heels of his hands fiercely against his eyes, trying not to cry. Both Emm and Robin are gone now. Lissa can cry with him, and Frederick can provide that stoic support Chrom sometimes needs, but now there’s no one to give the comfort that Emm or Robin could give. Funny, how the very people that could make him feel better are in no position to.

=

The memorial service is just as bad as Chrom was expecting. He makes it through the beginning of his hastily-written speech all right: He describes how, because his father had died in childbirth when Lissa was born, and because Naga could never be their mother in the way a human could, Emm had raised him and Lissa alone.

“I aspire to match her strength and fortitude, every day,” Chrom says, looking out across the multitudes gathered here to pay homage to Emm. If only she could see this—see that the people loved her, just as she wanted. “She truly was the strongest person I have ever known.”

It all goes downhill from there. He thinks that Robin should be here, to pay his respects, because he and Emm had been friends too, and that’s really what puts the fatal crack in his composure. A sentence later, his own voice betrays him; the next paragraph, he feels tears stinging at his eyes; soon, he’s stumbling through the words, choking on his own sorrow.

Lissa runs up to him after he finishes crying and almost bowls him over. He feels her tears wet his shirt as he bends to hug her back, but his are already drying, spent already. He just feels empty.

It takes more than six hours for all present, commoner and noble alike, to honour the dead Exalt, and by the end of it his shirt sticks to his back when he moves, glued there by the sweat pouring down from his neck, and his eyes ache, even with his glasses, and he’s even started to despise the sound of Lissa’s crying. Over and over again, the same rhythmic sobbing. It grates.

It is nearing five in the evening when Lissa, Chrom, and Frederick are finally able to leave. Chrom takes the front seat next to Frederick, while Lissa, exhausted, dozes in the back.

“This was a good service, milord,” Frederick says.

“I can only hope I did right by her,” Chrom says. “I’m nothing like my sister, I know that. But by remembering her, like this…” He can’t continue.

“I understand, milord. I think you will make a fine Exalt, as ill-suited as I am to be the judge of that.”

“Oh, please,” Chrom says. If such a sentiment were coming from anyone else but Frederick, he would have called it flattery. From Frederick, though, it’s just earnest and kind, and compared to his sister, Chrom doesn’t deserve any of it.

“Why didn’t you say anything at the service, Frederick? You were as close to Emm as we were—no one would have batted an eye.”

Frederick shakes his head. “It’s not my place, milord. I would rather show my appreciation for her through action, rather than words, in any case. As any loyal servant ought to.”

Chrom glances over, sees the emotions stacked behind Frederick’s determinedly neutral expression. He grips Frederick’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Frederick.”

“Nothing to apologise for, milord,” replies Frederick. “I am simply mourning the loss of a great woman, as everyone today should.”

“Yeah,” Chrom says softly. “She really was something, wasn’t she?”

Emmeryn comforting him after the doctors confirmed his father’s death; Emmeryn introducing him to his baby sister, Lissa. Emmeryn gently lecturing him for a failing grade in one of his classes. Emmeryn welcoming Robin with open arms, Emmeryn, accepting Chrom for who he was and accepting who he loved without a second thought. _Chrom, you are my family. I would never turn you away. I could never turn you away._

There is no one, anymore, that says his name like Emm would; and there will never be again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Exalt Emmeryn, it was sweet and good for you to die for Grima."
> 
> "Oh, well, I feel so much better about dying now."


	5. 俺のギムレーがこんなに可愛いわけがない

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has the dubious honour of being one of the three that are to blame for the Explicit rating (and graphic violence tag) on this fic. Just...so you know.

He’s in the laboratory again. Chrom’s left Frederick behind with Lissa, and he didn’t wait for Miriel or Henry or Ricken to come meet him, so he’s alone, all alone, with the Fell Dragon. 

Well, good. That’s what he wanted, anyway.

This time, Grima does not immediately speak. His eyes glint like red tongues of flame in the overhead lights, and his wings, blue-black like that of a raven’s, shine like oil. 

Chrom, for his part, is not feeling so tranquil. The memory of Emm’s memorial service is fresh in his mind.

“Nothing to say?” he says. “You’ve run out of sardonic quips?”

A dry chuckle. “You came to me, child of Naga. I should be asking you what you have to say. And—is this no less than the third time you’ve visited me?” He counts it out on Robin’s slender fingers. “What ails you so, Your Grace?”

“You have no right to use that title,” Chrom snarls. “And no right to press me for answers when it’s because of _you_ my sister lies dead.”

“I rather think Validar is to blame here, don’t you?”

“Oh, that’s rich. It’s all Validar’s fault, is that it? Not yours?” 

Grima watches him for a few seconds, brows furrowed, and then his eyes widen in surprise that Chrom is sure is exaggerated, if not faked. “Oh, you don’t know.”

The Fell Dragon slips closer to the window, a shark homing in on blood in the water. “Allow me to let you in on a little secret, child of Naga. The sacrifice needed only to be someone with Naga’s blood. Not your sister. It could have been your aunt, your uncle, a distant cousin… _anyone_ with a single drop of that sacred blood. I couldn’t tell you why Validar chose your sister, especially considering how difficult it must have been to get to her.”

That’s convenient. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“What evidence do you have that I am not?”

Chrom looks into Robin’s eyes, and no matter how much he wants to, he sees not even a single hint that the Fell Dragon might be lying. 

He sighs, and sits down in a single chair placed before the glass for researchers to make observations. The tablet controlling Grima’s collar is—somewhere, but Chrom doesn’t need it. Or want it, even. He doesn’t think he could hurt Robin even if he tried.

“You have read Validar’s materials.”

Chrom nods. It had been the first thing he’d had done, after Grima’s imprisonment here in the lab—he'd sent royal investigators in the form of Gaius and Cordelia to Validar’s house to see what they could find. And, fortunately, Validar had kept everything recorded in minute detail; he had left his controlling, domineering nature on full display. No wonder Robin tried to run away from home that New Year’s Eve—but he had been trained too well to obey, and so was dragged back into the spider’s nest only a few days later.

Guilt claws its way up Chrom’s throat. He could have been better. He could have done so much more. If he’d been more like his sister, he would have divined what it meant for someone as young as Robin to be out on the streets. Really, when it comes down to it, isn’t this all his fault?

“It’s regrettable,” Grima says. “But I am not to blame for it, child of Naga. Validar is. And I suppose he’s already paid the ultimate price for his crime.”

“My name is _Chrom_ ,” he says softly. His head drops; he can’t meet Robin’s eyes.

“Chrom,” Grima repeats, and to hear his name come from Robin’s lips, in Robin’s voice, it’s almost too much. His voice softens, becoming quiet and gentle. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Just—don’t call me child of Naga. I don’t like it.” The title puts him up next to his sister, someone who, as good and as kind as she was, he can never hope to be. She would have listened to Grima without getting angry at him or insulting him; she would have reached out and tried to _understand_ him, to heal him. All Chrom is doing is using him as a way to assuage the pain of Robin being gone. Because Grima has Robin's voice, has Robin's face, has Robin's body.

“Very well.” Grima paces back towards the bed again. “You know,” he says, as if the thought had just come to him, “I could bring Validar back for you, if you wish, so that you could mete out a punishment of your own. That is well within my power.” He allows himself a crooked smile. "Well, if I didn't have this collar on, I could. Alas, for now he will have to stay dead."

“As if,” says Chrom. “Not even Naga can bring people back to life.”

“Can’t she? Or won’t she?”

Chrom’s hands tighten into fists. “Honestly?” he says, “I don’t give a damn either way. I don’t care about Validar—he’s dead, by your hand, and that’s fitting punishment enough. What I care about is—I—”

The sentence goes unfinished as he smothers it in its infancy. He was on the cusp of making a terrible mistake. Grima is Grima (and Grima is Robin, part of his mind whispers, the dragon admitted it himself); he is, in Naga’s words, an ancient evil.

An ancient evil that sometimes acts so terribly human. Gregarious and personable. An ancient evil that’s wearing the skin of the man he loved—loves still, even.

“Yes, Chrom?”

Chrom draws in a shuddering breath as his resistance crumbles away just because of that single word: his name, said in the voice of his lover.

“Grima,” he says, using the dragon’s name for the first time, “please. Let me see him. Please.” He lifts his head and looks directly into that six-eyed stare. “I’m begging you.”

The dragon leans close, and Robin’s lips curl into a smile. “You know, I think I will let you see him,” Grima says, “if you do something for me first.”

Chrom rolls his eyes. He's not _that_ stupid. “I’m not going to let you go.”

“Oh, I know that very well,” Grima says. “You’re far too clever for that, Chrom, aren’t you? No, you will go to Naga.” At Chrom’s surprise, he chuckles, and continues: “Yes, Naga. And you will ask her a particular question.”

“What?”

Grima says: “You will ask her, _Who is Forneus_?” The dragon’s smile is perversely kind. “Once you have your answer, you will return to me. And you will be able to see Robin again.”

=

Robin’s breath is hot on his ear. “Please, please tell me if I’m doing something wrong,” Robin says, at the same moment his fingers curve to stroke Chrom’s prostate. “Is that—are you okay?”

Chrom, who had made a sound somewhere between a yelp and a whimper when the hot burst of pleasure had pulsed through him, groans, “You talk too much. I’ll let you know”—he’s cut off, gasping out a moan as Robin probes deep inside him—“if something’s wrong.”

“You say that, but…” 

He’s a demon, Chrom, on his hands and knees, thinks. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows what Chrom is weak to: with a finger or two up Chrom’s ass, a few kisses to the earlobe, Robin can make Chrom come without doing anything else. He’s done it before, and he might just do it now if he’s not careful.

Slowly, Robin withdraws his fingers, Chrom’s cock twitching as they slip free. Chrom hears the click of the lube bottle and he cranes his neck to see Robin settled back on his knees, adding a dollop of it to his fingers. “You’re way too cautious,” Chrom observes, trying to ignore the temptation to touch himself to finally get off.

Robin smiles, dark eyes like smouldering coals. “And you’re way too reckless,” he says. He scoots forward again, grips Chrom’s hips with one hand. “You’re”—he places a kiss to the small of Chrom’s back, butterfly-light—“the prince. I can’t”—another kiss, between Chrom’s wings—“hurt you. Frederickson would kill me.” By this point, Robin’s draped over him, and the kiss to the base of Chrom’s neck is more of a scrape of the teeth than anything else. It still feels good.

“Gods, would you hurry up?” Chrom says. “I’m dying here.”

“In due time, Your Highness.”

Another handful of minutes pass, blurred into one another by the sensations rocking Chrom’s body. Not for the first time, he curses how observant Robin is: He knows exactly how far to go in order to bring Chrom to the very brink, but not further. Each kiss, each time Robin palms his balls, each time he drags the callused pad of a finger across one of Chrom’s nipples, it’s all part of his plan to drive Chrom fucking _crazy_. It’s torment and Chrom can’t get enough.

When Robin at long, long last finally enters him, pushing in in one slow thrust, he doesn’t move immediately. He slumps over Chrom so they’re chest to back, Chrom's scales scraping against his stomach, and loops his arms around him. With a sigh, he nestles his chin in the curve of Chrom’s neck. Chrom’s always liked their height difference, whether Robin’s on top or on the bottom: They can have moments like these, or moments where they can kiss comfortably if Robin’s riding him. 

Robin settles into a rhythm, just as unbearably slow as all the other things he’s done. One hand lays flat on Chrom’s hip, and the other, still slick with lube, wanders to Chrom’s cock. Caught between the two sensations, both of which send his mind reeling, it doesn’t take long for Chrom to come, spilling onto the towels they'd laid out on the bed beforehand.

“Gods, Robin,” Chrom murmurs, voice rough and still heavy with lust.

Now that Chrom is finished, Robin isn’t planning on taking his time any longer. He turns forceful, almost brutal, drawing high, breathy moans from Chrom’s lips each time Robin buries himself as deeply as he can inside him.

After one thrust that shakes Chrom to his very core, Robin drags him up so they’re both on their knees, pressed together. Chrom feels Robin’s teeth on the curve of his neck, and he shudders as Robin’s cock, balls deep, moves inside him.

Then, without warning, Robin’s teeth click together, and Chrom lets out a shocked yell of pain as a strip of flesh is ripped from his shoulder. Chrom slumps forward onto one elbow, swearing. “Robin, what the hell?”

He turns his head, and looks into six blood-red eyes, sees the blood-stained mouth. Fear’s icy finger traces up his spine, warring with the pain from Chrom’s shoulder. 

Grima swipes at his mouth with the back of his wrist, smearing Chrom’s blood across Robin’s pale cheek, and then reaches for him again. He pulls out, flips Chrom over—Chrom cries out again as his shoulder hits the bed and one of his wings is crumpled beneath him—and leans in, grinning. His hips fit snugly between Chrom’s legs and without ceremony Grima shoves Robin’s cock into Chrom again.

Chrom feels the soft slide of feathers over his feet—Grima’s wings, brushing against him—as Grima leans forward, pushing himself against Chrom in a parody of what had happened before. He nuzzles his face into the crook of Chrom’s neck like an animal and then with a snap of his teeth consumes more of Chrom, swallowing down his flesh and blood with the blissful look of someone tasting ambrosia itself.

As Chrom writhes and cries underneath him, Grima takes more, and still more, feeding on Chrom leisurely, like someone with all the time in the world. Robin’s cock is still hard inside Chrom—harder, even—though Chrom isn’t really in a position to care.

Grima presses his face into torn, ravaged flesh and drinks from Chrom. When he comes up his mouth is ringed in Chrom’s blood and his teeth are dyed with it. He licks Chrom’s mouth open, crushes their lips together, swallows Chrom’s screams as he’d swallowed Chrom’s flesh; Chrom’s own blood coats his tongue as Grima’s teeth slice open his bottom lip in a dozen places. 

The dragon pulls away, cups Chrom’s face with his hands. Their faces are still so close that when Grima speaks, Robin’s lips brush against Chrom’s, soft as the slip of satin over skin.

“Chrom,” Grima purrs. “My lovely Chrom. Veins full to bursting with Naga’s blood.”

The tiny part of Chrom’s mind not worked up into a panicked frenzy notes that Robin is almost beautiful like this—wearing a lazy smirk, with pitch-dark scales scattered across his chest and hips. He looks like Chrom; he looks like a child of Naga. 

The impression doesn’t last as Grima opens his mouth and rips out Chrom’s throat.

Chrom comes awake in the dim darkness of his room, drenched in sweat, breathing hard. To his shock and shame, he’s actually hard, rock hard, and already dripping. He sweeps the covers back, and gropes for the lamp. Light illuminates the bedroom.

The images from the nightmare teem in his memories. Robin, teasing and petting and stroking him. (Grima, biting deep into his flesh.) Robin, laying kiss after kiss on Chrom’s skin, on the scales whose presence Chrom had always disliked. (Grima, kissing him deeply, possessively, lovingly.) Robin and him, pressed together, burning skin sliding against burning skin. _Robin_.

His cock twitches at the thought, and so, disgusted with himself and painfully aroused in equal measure, he reaches for it. He squeezes his eyes shut again, turns his mind towards Robin and Robin alone—the noises he’d make when Chrom took the lead, how he’d wrap his arms around Chrom’s neck and cling to him as he came. He strokes his cock a few times, and then turns on his side and spits into his palm.

In spite of the nature of his nightmare, his cock responds greedily to the attention. He comes hard after only a few moments, gasping Robin’s name into his pillow. 

He lets his head drop onto the pillow, and his hand, sticky with his own sperm, falls onto the blankets. It doesn't feel good. It feels like some essential part of him has been plucked out and taken far away. He yearns for its return to the place it belongs: nestled in the warmth under his ribs, by his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Therapist: "So, Your Grace, what can I help you with today?"
> 
> Chrom: "I, uh...had a dream about my boyfriend eating me."
> 
> Therapist: "What?"
> 
> Chrom: "What?"


	6. With Eyes Wide Open

“Milord! Milord, are you all right?”

The blinded attendants let Chrom go and he falls to his knees on the hard floor of the temple and retches. He can see the floor beneath him and he cannot see it, for in his vision it seethes and pulses like something living. Drops of red swirl in the dull colour of the stone floor and Chrom realises distantly his nose is bleeding.

Naga had not been angry. She had not consciously lashed out at him, nor had She even spoken harshly to him. But She was a goddess, a divine dragon, and the force of Her refusal had been enough to drive Chrom to his knees. All She had said, when he asked Her, _Who is Forneus?_ was this:

_No._

The word fell on him like a stone lid dropped onto a coffin. Even Chrom, of Naga’s blood, is sometimes unable to bear the burden of Her thoughts.

Frederick’s hand is on his shoulder. Chrom makes an effort to raise his head and smile weakly at Frederick, but that just causes his stomach to clench painfully and he retches again, a string of foul-tasting spit dribbling from between his lips. 

After a few minutes, Chrom manages to get up with Frederick’s help, and stands there, leaning on him, as Frederick dabs at his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. The aftereffects of Naga’s power have left him speechless, and every time he closes his eyes he sees Her, burned on the insides of his eyelids like the afterimages you get from staring at the flame of an open pyre. He hears Her, as though Her voice is still echoing in his bones.

He’d been still off-balance from his nightmare about Robin—about Grima—and Naga had only made it worse. It’s many long minutes before he can finally muster any sort of speech, and when he speaks, his voice is hoarse.

“I’m sorry about that, Frederick.”

Frederick’s lips purse. “No need to apologise, milord. It’s been my job to take care of you for years now.”

“Still,” Chrom says. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You shouldn’t have to deal with me being a vomiting mess.”

Frederick just shakes his head, dismissing that out of hand, and says: “…What did happen, milord?”

“I just asked Her a question,” Chrom says. “See, Grima mentioned a name to me—Forneus—and so I…I wondered if I might be able to help our researchers by asking Naga about it. If it might have some bearing on our work banishing the blight.”

That’s all a lie, but gods, if Chrom doesn’t start half-believing it himself when he says it. 

“That is commendable, milord,” Frederick says, which makes Chrom feel all the guiltier. “Forneus, you said?”

Chrom nods. “Naga refused to answer when I asked Her who they were. And the refusal of a goddess is…potent.”

Frederick ponders the name, face serious and still. “I haven’t heard that name either, milord. Though I suppose that’s reasonable, considering Naga knew nothing of it either.”

Chrom thinks that it was less likely that Naga knew nothing about Forneus, and more likely that she refused to tell him anything about them. And that only served to stoke the flame of his curiosity. Who was Forneus? Their name is known to two great dragon gods, one known in legend as mankind’s sworn destroyer, the other its saviour. What, exactly, had this person done?

Frederick is still talking. “I know it’s not my place, milord, but I urge caution. You have spent much time with the Fell Dragon, and I fear he may corrupt you. I do not know why he gave you this name, but…”

Chrom drags a smile onto his face. “Your concern is appreciated, Frederick the Wary. I’ll be fine. I know the danger Grima poses. Naga showed me once a vision of the future where his return was not stopped.”

In great detail, too. Visions, picture-perfect, with sound and colour, are often employed by Naga to make one point or another—Chrom recalls easily the pictures She had shown him to convince him of the clear and present danger Grima posed: the blasted landscapes, the red-eyed creatures that had once been humans, wandering street to street on legs that bend in too many places, a sludgy blackness oozing from seams in their skin. Naga showed him too New Ylisstol, burning; showed him his sisters dying side by side.

That brings Chrom up short. His sisters, side by side…

He hadn’t ever really thought about it. Emm had died to bring Grima back, but Lissa had been evacuated from the palace as soon as there was news of Validar's attack. If Grima had truly returned, if they had not been ready to seal him when he poured himself into his human vessel—even then, there was no way his sisters would have died side by side. So had what Naga showed him been…had it been nothing more than something she'd dreamed up to bring him to Her side?

And now, there’s Her refusal to even discuss Forneus. Even if She has something to hide, it would have been all too easy for Her to make up some story that he would believe. This denial, this reluctance to even give him any sort of lead, speaks to something else altogether: The name Forneus symbolises something Naga wishes to keep hidden, at _any_ cost.

Both Frederick and Robin have told Chrom that he’s far too trusting for his own good—and Chrom would be the first to admit they have a point. But as he told Robin, they never would have met had he been any different, and so he would rather stay the same. 

A question rises in Chrom’s mind. Everything that had happened recently had primed him for its emergence, spun a cocoon where it grew; and now its cocoon breaks open and it crawls up, into the light.

=

Chrom waits until it’s past midnight to go to the laboratory. He sneaks in through one of the back entrances, grateful that as the Exalt he was given a key fob with the highest level of security clearance, and makes his way down to the lower level where Grima is.

His thoughts race round and round in his head and nervous energy thrums in his veins. He flinches at unexpected noises and sees scientists and security guards around every corner. This is only chance to maybe—just maybe—see Robin again, and he wants nothing less than to be interrupted.

When he enters the observation room in front of Grima’s cell, he’s surprised to find the lights in the cell still on and the dragon dozing on his cot, still sitting up, his back against the wall and his knees pulled to his chest. Asleep curled up like that, Grima is the spitting image of Robin, and without that ever-present ghost of a smirk haunting his face, Grima seems oddly…reduced.

Chrom finds himself moving in that slow, measured way people move when they are trying not to wake another person. He edges over to the chair and sits in it gingerly, watching Grima for any sign of movement. 

Grima’s eyes snap open suddenly, and Chrom, startled, sucks in a breath. The eyes flick from side to side, taking in the room, and then focus on Chrom. Slowly, Grima raises his head from his knees, and then Robin’s lips curve into a soft smile, one absent of any malice or disdain.

“Oh, Chrom,” he says, and Chrom’s eyes widen. He knows that phrase—he’s heard it tens, hundreds of times. Robin would greet him with it every time they met somewhere outside the palace. At a restaurant, at a café, in a park, at the corner of a street, whenever Chrom would approach him, Robin would always look up, smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and say, _Oh, Chrom_.

Chrom says: “Robin?”

The smile sharpens into a smirk, and Chrom’s stomach drops as the nightmare flashes to the forefront of his mind. “Not quite,” Grima says. 

The Fell Dragon slides off the bed and pads on bare feet towards the window where Chrom is sitting. “I admit I did not expect to see you back so soon, Chrom,” Grima says. “You are very diligent.”

Chrom rolls his eyes in exasperation. Grima probably knows _exactly_ why Chrom hurried to uphold his side of the deal.

“So, what did you learn from Naga?” Grima asks. He seems honestly curious. 

“Well, I…She…She rarely has much to say. She didn't really—” Chrom licks his lips. The excuse he's trying, and failing, to give, isn't much of an excuse at all. Is there even much of a point in trying, now? Grima's no doubt caught on. 

Grima smiles kindly. “Allow me to guess—she told you nothing.” 

"You knew she wouldn’t tell me anything, didn’t you?” replies Chrom. He’s on his feet again; he presses close to the glass. “You _did_. You just sent me to Naga to make a point.” 

It’s the only way Grima could get Chrom to trust him, Chrom realises: to make him come to conclusions himself, rather than being told. Of course, after ten centuries of demonization, what else is Grima supposed to do when confronted with such carefully-cultivated distrust? 

In response, Grima offers a shrug. “I had my suspicions,” he says. “For all her power, Naga can be so short-sighted. Always reactive.” 

Grima meets Chrom’s gaze. “But you don’t care about what I think of Naga, do you? You want your Robin.” 

Chrom swallows something thick; all thoughts of Grima and how his story might differ from the one Chrom had been given by Naga are gone out of his head. “Yes,” he says. “You’ll—you’ll let me see him, right? I did what you wanted.” 

“So desperate,” Grima says fondly. “But, that said, you may see him. Let it not be said I do not keep my word.” 

He retreats a few steps from the glass, and his head dips. A few seconds pass. Grima’s eyes flicker, suddenly, his whole body tensing and relaxing all at once. His face softens, smoothing out into something gentler, something more wholly Robin. 

When he looks up, his eyes are still red, and his teeth are still sharp as can be, but Chrom sees only Robin. Chrom sees Robin in the set of his mouth, in the different way he holds himself—with less arrogant confidence and with more awkward charm. 

“Gods,” Chrom breathes. “It’s really you.” 

Robin smiles, but it’s a frail, imperfect copy of its normal self. “Chrom,” he says. “Yeah. It’s me.” 

It takes only a few moments for Chrom to let himself into Robin’s cell, but those few moments seem to last forever. He fumbles with the key fob, nearly drops it—but soon enough the lock clicks open and he yanks open the door and strides in. 

Robin is waiting for him, hands twined together, shoulders slightly hunched. Chrom gathers him up into a tight hug, and having that warm, slender body in his arms again fills him with relief so potent that he thinks he's about to cry. After a second, Robin returns the hug, his arms curling around Chrom’s waist—even now, he remembers about Chrom’s bound wings. 

“Robin,” Chrom says. “Robin,” he says again, savouring the sound of his lover’s name. “Oh, gods, I thought I’d lost you for good. Both you and Emm, in just one night. But you’re still here." He swallows down the tears he wants to shed. "You’re still here.” 

“I’m still here,” Robin says, pressing his cheek against Chrom’s chest. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I promise.” 

They separate, but stay close. One of Robin’s hands keeps hold of Chrom’s sleeve; one of Chrom’s hands cards through Robin’s hair. Chrom drinks him in. He wouldn’t have believed this is real, if he weren’t able to feel the pressure on his hand as Robin leans into it like a cat starved of affection. 

“Chrom?” Robin says, after a while. He catches Chrom’s hand with his own, laces their fingers together. 

“What is it?” Chrom asks. “I’m all ears.” 

"I have something to tell you,” Robin says, and then his voice dies, like a radio suddenly turned off. His mouth twists as he gropes for the words, tongue pushing uselessly against the roof of his mouth. 

Eventually, Robin drops his head as if giving in to something, and squeezes Chrom’s hand tighter than anything. “I just—wanted to tell you that I love you. You know that, right? I know this isn’t the best moment, but Grima could take back control at any time. So.” 

“Oh, Robin,” Chrom says. “Yeah, I know.” 

“Good,” Robin says, looking strangely defeated. “I wanted you to hear it from me, not him.” 

“It was a pretty gratifying, though, to hear him say you yearned for me,” Chrom says, hoping to inject some levity into the situation. He chucks Robin’s chin with his free hand. “You missed me that much?” 

“Of course I did,” Robin says, his gaze slanting off to the side. A faint pink suffuses his cheeks. “Though I admit I would have put it a little differently. Yearning sounds a little—well—” 

Chrom chuckles, and though it may have been a little forced, most of it is natural. “Desperate? Needy?” He squeezes Robin into another tight hug. “It’s just so good to see you, Robin. To talk to you again.” 

“Yeah,” Robin says, his voice humming in Chrom’s chest. “Yeah, it really is. Though I can generally hear everything you say to Grima, so it wasn’t quite the same for me as it was for you.” He gives Chrom a familiar sly smile. “That little outburst you had on my account, for example.” 

Chrom’s flushing now, too, and he laughs for real this time. He’s grateful that they can manage to wrest a bit of humour from this situation—humans are good at that. 

After another few moments of comfortable silence, Chrom says, “That’s right, Grima. You’re all right? He hasn’t done anything to you?” 

Robin shakes his head. “He hasn’t done anything to me since—yeah.” He takes a breath. “We are one, as he says. I don’t think he can really get rid of me because of that.” 

“That’s…good, I guess,” Chrom says. “No, that’s great. Maybe we can figure out a way to free you.” 

Robin makes a pained noise that Chrom realises is meant to be a sort of chuckle. “You won’t,” he says. “Because Grima and I are one. We cannot be separated.” 

“Don’t say that,” Chrom says, gripping Robin’s shoulders tightly. “Don’t say that, Robin.” 

“I’m going to say it and I’ll say it again if I have to,” Robin snaps. “Give up, Chrom. I know you’re optimistic to a fault, but this time, there’s nothing you can do. Nothing. My blood is Grima’s blood, my body”—his voice wavers—“is…is Grima’s body—” 

“Hey,” Chrom says, stunned by Robin’s outburst. “Hey, Robin, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, you know. Remind you about that.” 

Robin sniffles and dabs at his nose with a sleeve, but doesn’t say anything. Chrom doesn’t blame him. There’s nothing really to talk about, and there’s no way Chrom can tell him it’s okay. Because, well, it’s not really okay at all. 

Seeing Robin’s eyebrows furrow, Chrom asks: “What’s…what’s wrong?” 

Robin rolls his eyes, a disgusted look on his face. “It’s nothing. Grima just—just wants me to tell you about Forneus.” He grits his teeth, the muscles in his jaw standing out from the force of it, and says: “I’m—not—your—damn—messenger.” 

“So you know who that is?” Chrom asks. 

“I do,” Robin says. “Rather too well. I can see all of Grima’s memories, as he can see my own.” 

Chrom struggles with his curiosity. He really does. But he _trusts_ Robin, so who better to get an answer from than him? 

“Well—who is Forneus?” Chrom says. “Don’t tell me because of Grima, tell me because I asked. When I went to Naga, She wouldn’t even give me a proper answer. What did this person _do_ , Robin?” 

Robin’s eyes drift shut, and he inhales deeply, exhales slowly. His hands grope for Chrom’s again, and Chrom takes them. For a split second, Robin’s expression tightens, as if he’s in physical pain, and then it eases. 

And, in a low voice, Robin tells him everything. 

“That can’t be,” Chrom says. His voice, the slack expression on his face, they betray his shock. “There’s no way.” 

“It’s true,” Robin says. “All of it is true. Grima has—never once lied to you, Chrom. Naga really did tell him he shouldn’t exist when she killed him, barely a year after his birth. And why? Because he was born from the union of divine dragon and human blood, cultivated in a human body. Because he was artificial.” 

Chrom can’t even imagine it—something being so unnatural that even a being like Naga found it repulsive. And Grima had not chosen to come into the world in such a form. To be killed simply because of the circumstances of your birth, that’s too reminiscent of the war Ylisse once had with Plegia, long ago. 

“That’s why the blight appears,” Robin’s saying. “Because of what Grima was made to be. His very presence is anathema to everything natural. The only way to prevent it is to contain him in a human vessel, like now, and pray he never adopts his true form—as he did, if only temporarily, during his recent awakening.” 

Chrom makes to say something, but the sounds stick in his throat. There’s too much to take in—Grima’s origins, the blight’s cause and the prospect of its permanence, the simple statement _Grima has never once lied to you_. Naga lied to him, but Grima has never; what is he supposed to think? What is he supposed to do? Who, aside from Robin, is he supposed to trust? 

“What do I do, Robin?” Chrom asks. “Where do we go from here?” 

“I don’t know,” Robin says. “Just, Chrom, promise me one thing?” 

“What?” 

“Be careful,” Robin says, thinking of Grima. 

“I will,” Chrom says, thinking of Naga. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Disappointed voice] Oh, _Chrom_.


	7. Forneus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic violence (and second-person narration!) ahoy.
> 
> cw: child abuse

You’re a boy sitting in a tiny stone prison cell, listening to a tall, gaunt man exchange some words with your guard. You’ve been here for weeks now, eating the same stale bread and old, hard cheese, drinking the same brackish water, sleeping the same fitful sleep every night. Your white hair has grown long and ragged, and your skin has gone pale and papery from the persistent lack of sun. 

The guard unlocks your cell and pulls you up forcefully by your arm. He pushes you towards the tall man—someone who’s clearly important, as the rich purple robes hanging from his broad shoulders and the golden bracelets gathered at his wrists suggest. 

“Hello, boy,” the man says. “I am Forneus. Have you a name?”

“Grima,” you say. It’s not really your name—you don’t know if your parents gave you one, or don’t remember if they did—but it’s what everyone else called you. In thieves’ cant, _grima_ means “mask” or “spectre”. It fits you.

“Grima, eh?” Forneus curves an arm around your shoulder, ushers you into a hallway lined with torches. You try to set your feet but with a wide smile he pushes you forward. “None of that, now. You are destined for greatness, Grima.”

You ignore this, instead craning your neck to see the guard is following you, and has been joined by another. Fear is on your tongue, ashy and nauseating. Forneus is still talking.

They take you to a high-ceilinged room, all of stone. Skylights far, far above your head let down streamers of sunlight that touch on a low table in the centre of the room. It’s formed from the same sandstone the walls are built from, has a slight slope that angles one end towards a metal grille on the floor, and is carved with an intricate network of runnels that remind you of canals built to divert and direct the flow of water.

You grow to hate that table.

The two guards bind you to it, face down, and shove a thick leather gag in your mouth. Your right arm is nearly wrenched out of its socket as they pull it out straight and force your hand to lie flat on its palm by your side.

Forneus strolls into your vision, holding a silver knife, and says, “Let me tell you what I am going to do, Grima. You need to understand. No—I want you to understand.”

You grind your teeth against the leather gag and glare at him with dark, coal-black eyes alight with fury. 

He smiles gently. “From you, I will create new life. It will be a miracle worthy of the gods, because you will _be_ one.”

Forneus comes around to your right side, and you feel the tip of the knife bite into the back of your hand. You go rigid—tensed for the true pain that is inevitably, undoubtedly, coming. “Six eyes,” Forneus says, “to represent your divinity.”

And his work begins.

It takes him six days to perfect the sigil on your hand—six agonising days to match the six staring eyes. The routine is simple: He pares more of your flesh away, rubs alchemical compounds into the wounds—he’s described the ingredients to you, but you’re in no shape to pay attention—that make your skin seethe and burn. He compliments your fortitude, talks to you about his five previous failures.

When he is finished, he has the guards lift you from the table, and he shows you your own hand, pushing it in front of your glazed-over eyes. The sigil on the back of it is dyed a poisonous purple. “Do you see?” he says. “Do you see? You’ve been so strong. A sign, I believe, of what you will become. We humans grow only in times of conflict, and in times of peace, we stagnate, we grow fat and become indolent. Your strength will be like nothing ever seen before. You will transcend humanity, and become something new.”

You thought your hand would be the worst of it, and you are wrong, so wrong. Because then the alchemical work truly begins. Your back is carved up just like your hand; Forneus waves the diagram in front of your face one afternoon, pointing out to you where he incorporated the six-eyed sigil amongst all the alchemical symbols, highlighting how the edges of the diagram flare like outspread wings.

“Here,” he says, indicating an incomprehensible line of text, “are the fasteners that will bind your soul to the body, no matter what punishment is inflicted on it. They are necessary in order to keep you alive while I finish the great work.”

The work on your back lasts for long enough that you lose count of how many days it’s been. You lose your voice sometime during week two, and sometime during week three you rip out a tooth from biting down on the leather gag too hard. Then Forneus moves on to your legs, your arms, your chest, your stomach, drawing patterns and runes, their beauty obscene, across your skin. He opens scars, and re-opens scars; he grinds powders into open wounds, feeds you brews that sear the inside of your throat and make you lose your sense of taste, such as it is; he circles the table, muttering incantations, wreathed in an ethereal nimbus of light.

You drift in a midnight realm between life and death, sometimes sightless, often voiceless. Forneus has spilled so much of your blood that you should be dead, but you’re not. His spells tether you here, prevent you from crossing over into a painless peace.

On day eighty—you know it’s day eighty, because Forneus told you—Forneus presents you with a crystalline phial. He has to hold it in front of your nose himself, as you are still bound to the table. 

Something seethes in the phial’s depths: a black liquid, shot through with streaks of moss green. It writhes up the sides of the phial, moving with uncanny intelligence, and rages against the wax seal at the phial’s top before slithering down to the bottom again. You stare at it, expressionlessly.

“This,” Forneus says reverently, “is a phial of Naga’s blood. This is the blood of the dragon who would declare herself a goddess, Grima. I have kept it here, nurtured on my blood and yours, waiting for someone like you. All this work up until now has been to prepare you for the imbibing of Her blood.”

He undoes the gag, and you realise what he means to do, so you close your mouth and refuse to open it. Clicking his tongue, Forneus holds your nose, and when your body, still stupidly, stubbornly insistent on its own survival, forces your teeth apart to suck in a breath, he pours the blood in.

Your eyes go wide and staring as you feel the blood worm its way down your throat. Forneus puts the gag back in, lecturing you on your short-sightedness, as the blood puts down its roots in your body. He speaks as if he can’t hear or see you writhing, straining against your bonds. 

“I do not understand your reluctance,” Forneus says. “You are becoming something wonderful, Grima. A singular, perfect being. I cannot wait to see it.”

Your body begins to grow. Your cheeks tear up the side as your jaws lengthen and widen, and your teeth fall out one by one then all the rest at once, replaced by sharper ones that can rip and tear through fragile human flesh. Painful growths appear along your upper jaw, and you go blind, only to see again days later as those growths reveal themselves to be eyes. Six of them. They paint the world in colours you’ve never seen before; you see the air itself tremble as you breathe, as Forneus walks to and fro in front of you.

Your fingers and toes fuse together and your arms and legs gain an extra joint. Feathers begin to push through your skin like ink beading on the surface of parchment. Your torso stretches and halfway between what were once your legs and arms new limbs appear—a third set of wings. The part of your mind still inviolate clings to what Forneus said. Six upon six. A symbol of your divinity.

Forneus is constantly by your side as Naga’s blood moulds your body like a potter would their clay. He cleans away the blood and the rags of what once was your skin, now replaced by scales, with his own two hands. His whispers fill your ears, and now that you’re this far gone, you start believing them.

But you are not complete yet. You still know agony, in its purest form, as your two sides, human and dragon, war with each other, vying for dominance. From this conflict, your power begins to grow, a twisted, destructive thing born from suffering. 

A month and six days after Forneus gives you the blood, he feeds you his own. And it is then, and only then, that you finally settle into your new form; it is then, and only then, that equilibrium is established between human and dragon.

You are a god. You are a singular, perfect being. 

You are the Fell Dragon, Grima.

=

Grima awakens in a foul mood, with an aching head. He grinds his teeth and glares at the other wall of his cell, eyes smarting from the harsh clinical light pouring down from above his head. The foolish Exalt, fortunately, has been gone for hours.

“Must you,” he asks of the empty room, “paw through my memories like some filthy scavenger?”

He closes his eyes and when he opens them, he is in a high-ceilinged room, all of stone. Skylights far, far above his head let down streamers of sunlight that touch on a low table in the centre of the room. It’s carved from the same sandstone the walls are built from, has a slight slope that angles one end towards a metal grille on the floor, and is etched with an intricate network of runnels.

Robin stands on the other side of the table from him—irritatingly defiant, as usual. They face each other down: a young, scowling Plegian boy with ragged hair, naked from the waist up, with six eyes carved into the back of his hand and a diagram like flaring wings etched into his back, and Robin, slim in dark robes that echo the fashions of a millennia ago.

“You thought it would be a one-way street, didn’t you?” Robin asks. He laughs. “You thought you could just take what you liked from me— _use_ me. Well, too bad.”

The boy rolls his eyes. “I certainly don’t spend my time rooting around in the darkest corners of your mind. I would’ve thought you’d extend that same courtesy to me. After all, aren’t you always claiming to have the moral high ground?”

“Oh, please. Don’t lecture me on morality. You’re a monster.”

Grima lets that statement sit for a while, to show Robin it’s beneath him to even dignify it with a response. Monster—that word, couched in such human terms, doesn’t apply to him. He is far, far beyond humanity now.

“That besides,” Grima says once he feels he’s made Robin wait for long enough, “you came very close to breaking our little deal, back there. You resisted me more than once during our conversation with your precious Chrom. Even though I was kind enough to let you see him.”

Robin’s sneer falls off his face. “That was…a mistake. I didn’t mean to—you weren’t letting me speak, and I just—reacted—”

“Excuses, excuses,” Grima says. “I upheld my end of the bargain, Robin. I did not harm Chrom, even when he failed to seal me as Naga commanded him to. And in return,” Grima steps around the table, stalks closer and closer to Robin on bare feet, “you were supposed to let me do what I liked with your body. Without any resistance from _you_.”

“It—it won’t happen again. I promise. I swear, it was just a mistake.” Robin’s hands clench together. “Please, I beg you. Don’t hurt him.”

Grima lets the silence stretch for one moment, two, and then laughs. “That’s better,” he says, reaching up to trace the line of Robin’s chin with a finger. “You know your place.”

Robin retreats, clutching fitfully at his robes, and Grima turns away. It’s almost too easy to twist Robin around his little finger—Robin knows full well that Grima will one day shed the shackles Naga placed upon him this time around, and so he’s terrified of defying him because of what Grima might do to Chrom when that day comes. As for Chrom, well. He’s a sentimental fool.

With some surprise, he hears Robin speaking. “What I saw,” Robin says, softly, “is that why you…?”

It takes some time for Grima to comprehend what Robin is asking, and why there’s concern, of all things, in Robin’s voice. And when he does, he starts to laugh.

“You think that’s my motivation? Some violence wrought upon me more than a millennia ago? Robin, you are more foolish than you appear.”

Robin blinks, surprise plain on his face. The thought that the trauma to which Robin bore witness is not at the core of what drives Grima seems just as incomprehensible to him as Robin’s cautious question to Grima had been. “What? But—”

Grima doesn’t let him finish. “Why would I lie about this? To you? Why lie at all, as a matter of fact, when the truth can be just as misleading?” 

Grima paces back towards Robin. “Let me remind you of something you seem to have forgotten. You are human. I am not. I am a god, Robin.” He smirks, and decides he ought to grant Robin the privilege of some insight. “And as for my motivations? Well, let me ask you a question.”

His words allow Robin to find his footing again; yes, there’s the usual suspicion on his face, the usual distrust. “A rhetorical one, I suppose,” he says.

A sharp-toothed smile, a chuckle. “You know me too well, Robin. Tell me, then. When you perfect one of your creations, do you keep all of the failures that preceded it? Or do you discard them?

“Let me put it another way. When perfection has at last been attained, what need is there for imperfection?”

“And you are perfection in this situation.”

“But of course,” Grima says. “I am a singular, perfect being.”

“I don’t think I believe that,” replies Robin. He smiles suddenly. “The way I see it, you’re just as human as I am. Look around us! You still cling to your _human_ past, your _human_ appearance—”

“You think you're so clever,” the boy says, grasping Robin's collar and pulling him down so they see eye to eye, "even though you couldn't be more wrong."

Grima chuckles softly. “Naga and her ilk have demonized me for millennia, and humans willingly joined in. It's cruel, isn't it? Humans created me, and humans rejected me. Dragons, those false gods, cling stubbornly to their mastery over humans, and refuse to countenance the existence of anything that might upset that balance—like me. Imperfect creatures, all of you. There is no need for species so rotten with hypocrisy.”

Abruptly, he shoves Robin away and turns his back on him. "I'm finished humouring you, Robin. Go back to sleep."

Grima blinks, and is back in the empty cell, all alone. He can feel Robin pushing and straining against him, and so Grima bears down on him until the part of him that is Robin has sunk unwillingly into unconsciousness.

Stay that way, Grima thinks. He can’t—won’t—have Robin interfering at the close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The backstory Shadows of Valentia gave Grima is the best thing that ever happened to him.
> 
> Also, "gríma" really does mean "mask" or "spectre"...at least in Old English. [See here.](http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/017508)
> 
> (If any of you readers frequent the r/fireemblemheroes weekly writing thread, parts of this chapter may feel familiar. That's because Grima's backstory and motivations, as explored here, are adapted from a piece I myself wrote for that thread one week. I'm delhuillier on Reddit, too, by the way.)


	8. The Devil Is Not So Black As He Is Painted

Two phrases circle through Chrom’s mind, ceaselessly.

It had taken him some time to realise what, exactly, they imply. He’d been poring over the conversation he’d had with Robin and the three he’d had with Grima, searching for something that might help him decide what to do next, when, with all the force and suddenness of a bolt of lightning arcing between the clouds and the ground, his mind had drawn a connexion between those two simple phrases.

_I could bring Validar back for you, if you wish._

_Grima has never once lied to you._

He dwells on these phrases while listening to the ministers give speeches, he dwells on them when he sees the picture of Emm on their mantelpiece, wreathed in black crape. He ponders them when he hears Lissa crying about Emm behind the closed door of her bedroom, and when he lies in bed, alone, at night.

_I could bring Validar back for you, if you wish._

_Grima has never once lied to you._

Inevitably, every time he finds himself brooding over them, he is drawn to a single conclusion. A simple fact that follows so, so easily from the first two. It’s something he keeps pushing to the back of his mind, because the hope it gives him is terrible in its intensity, a maelstrom that threatens to overwhelm him.

_I could bring Validar back for you, if you wish._

_Grima has never once lied to you._

_Grima can bring Emm back._

It seems taboo to hold that thought in his mind. Even just _entertaining_ it makes him feel like he is participanting in some profane ritual. Naga had always taught that death was final and should be respected and accepted—and that not even She, for all Her power, could save humanity from its dark grasp.

_Can’t she? Or won’t she?_

The Fell Dragon’s words have been returning to him a lot, lately, as he’s agonised over what to do. A whisper in the back of his mind, smooth and seductive. Calling him back, over and over again, to that blasphemous thought.

_Grima can bring Emm back._

It’s too good to be true, yet at the same time it’s wholly logical. Grima has served as a counterpoint to Naga in everything so far, so would it not make sense that he is able (or _willing_ , Grima reminds him) to do what She cannot (or _will_ not)?

There’s really no other path Chrom can take, not now that he has this knowledge. And so, a week after he sees Robin, he goes to the laboratory where Grima waits for the last time.

The dragon acknowledges Chrom’s presence with his usual sharp smile. “Have you come to see Robin again?” he asks. He ambles over to the chair he’d been given and settles into it, crossing one leg over another and folding his arms. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible just now. I haven’t come up with anything to ask of you in return for that kindness yet.”

It’s déjà vu for Chrom: here they are, set out in the same positions that they’d had the first time he had come to speak to the Fell Dragon. Except this time, it’s not anger that had driven Chrom to this tiny cell under the earth, but something else entirely.

“Actually,” Chrom says, “I came to see you.”

“Oh, really? No doubt it’s because you want something _else_ from me, then.”

The look on Chrom’s face must have given it away, for Grima gives him a sardonic smile. “Well, Chrom, I am at your mercy. What is it you desire?”

Chrom takes a deep breath. He thinks of Emm, and what she might say. He needs to emulate her, now more than ever, because if he succeeds—if Grima agrees to bring her back—then he’ll be able to see her again.

“Let me just say first that I don’t have that remote with me now,” Chrom says. He shows Grima his hands, for proof. “So you can say no. I’m not going to use the collar to hurt you. Okay?” He remembers what Naga had said to Grima, when she killed him just for being born: _You should not exist._ “I think…I think you’ve been hurt enough.”

Grima doesn’t say anything, but his smile’s faded a little. Chrom’s not sure yet if that’s a good sign; he keeps talking anyway, knowing that he can’t well stop now.

“I came to ask you to bring my sister back,” Chrom says. “You told me that you could resurrect Validar, didn’t you? To let me punish him myself? Why not my sister, instead?”

“Why, indeed?” Grima asks. “Why should I? When you’ve kept me imprisoned here for more than a month now? Subjected me to examination after examination, allowed me to have no privacy, no dignity?” He shakes his head. “Not that I could do it, in any case. Not as long as I stand here, collared like a _dog_.”

“Because, like you said, she didn’t have to die,” Chrom says. “So…so…why _not_ do it? Why _not_ take this opportunity to show the world that Naga is wrong about you? Show them that they don’t need to imprison you or torture you. Show them that—that you can be just as good as She is.”

“You really think one paltry deed will redeem me in the eyes of the world?” Grima asks. “You really are too naïve, Chrom.”

Chrom counts the eyes: one, two. Grima’s not happy, not content, not amused. He’s troubled—no, he’s conflicted. Chrom’s sure of it.

“Humanity needs something to hate,” Grima tells him. “They always have. First it was me, and then it was the Plegians, and now it is me again. And should I ever disappear, Naga will find something, or someone else, for you to despise. Because without a villain, how else will she convince you to turn to her, year after year? This will not work, Chrom.”

“You’re not even going to try?”

“That’s right. I won’t,” Grima says. “Because I know you humans. You created me, you put me through six hells to twist me into what I am now, and then you threw me away, just because Naga told you to. Nothing I do will ever be good enough for hypocrites like you.”

The pain in Grima’s words, with life breathed into it by Robin’s voice, makes Chrom’s chest ache. He feels like he’s coming apart, trapped between this gut-wrenching sympathy for Grima and his terrible yearning to see Emm again.

“Then…” he says. Thinking of Emm gives him an idea: she would so willingly open herself to those with grievances, to those that were hurting and needed help. Trust, to her, had always been the most important part of a relationship. 

Emm had always said that you needed to give people space to do the right thing. You needed to offer your own thoughts, and your own feelings, but when it came to the decision, you had to withdraw. You had to let them feel free to make their own choices. It’s hard, but (as Emm would say) doing what’s right always is.

“Then…” he says again, slowly, “how about I let you go? You don’t need to promise me anything. You can decide, after you’re free, whether or not you want to help me. Whether or not you want to bring my sister back. Of your…of your own will.”

For the first time since they’d met, Grima’s at a loss for words. To Chrom, Grima looks… _lost_ , pitifully so, confused by the idea that a relationship could be anything other than transactional.

It tells Chrom that he’s on the right track. So he unlocks the door to Grima’s cell again and goes inside. Grima starts up from his chair when Chrom enters, and the Fell Dragon looks—not scared, exactly, but wary. Distrustful. Suspicious.

Chrom—slowly, as not to startle Grima—lifts his hands and touches the collar around his neck. It’s so, so cold. “I think you deserve to be trusted, Grima,” he says. He’s struggling to put his feelings into words. “No one has given you anything like that for millennia, have they? No one’s ever given you a _chance_. So…let me be the first to do so.”

He’s a child of Naga, and he has his own power, too. It doesn’t take much coaxing for the collar to release Grima and fall away with a clatter to the floor beneath their feet. There is a ringing silence. And then:

“You…” Grima breathes. “You actually did it.”

He smiles. It’s nothing like his usual smirks or sneers: There is no malice or ill will lurking in its lines. Just a fledgling happiness that makes the expression so, so gentle, and so, so soft.

Grima reaches out to take Chrom’s hands in his own. His hands are Robin’s hands: warm, human, real.

“Thank you, Chrom,” Grima says. “You will have your sister back.”

Robin and Frederick have called him too trusting for his own good, and sometimes, he had to wonder if they were right. But now, when he sees Robin next, when he sees Frederick again with Emm by his side, he’s going to tell them this: it’s because of this trust that Emm is back.

“But first,” Grima says, “would you take me to Naga? I still have business with her.”

“Of course,” Chrom says, willing to do anything now for Grima, who had promised to bring Emm back to life. “Of course. I have some questions for her, too.”

“I’m sure you do,” Grima murmurs, reaching up to fit a hand against Chrom’s cheek. “I’m sure you do.”

=

Naga’s fury at Grima’s presence by his side makes the room tremble and the ground shake and drives Chrom to his knees—but at a light touch to his shoulder, the chaos retreats from him, leaves him startled but not hurt. It’s Robin inside Grima who’s pushed him to protect Chrom from the worst—of that, Chrom has no doubt.

“Do not judge him so harshly, Naga,” Grima says, and Chrom feels Robin’s knuckles brush his cheek. “He’s a sentimental fool, your Exalt. But it is a very human thing to wish to see the dead again. And when I say that I can do what you will not, well…what did you expect?”

In the half-darkness, Naga is still. Her six eyes stare out of the shadows, focussed fixedly on Grima. She hisses something that’s too quiet for Chrom to hear; Grima flaps his hand dismissively, and in the faint light rolling in from the half-open doors behind them, Chrom sees an annoyed moue touch his lips.

“You are all alone now, Naga,” Grima says, “your children too far away to help, and with an Exalt too crippled by his own doubts to fight.” A sneer spreads across his face, and he takes a step forward, and then another, shedding his humanity like an old coat as he goes. Robin’s form dissolves into glossy black scales, great wings, and a heavy tail; his face opens like a book dropped on its spine to expose six glowing eyes as red as the knife’s edge of a sunset, crests of twisted bone, and too many teeth. 

Grima’s voice is no longer Robin’s, but entirely his own: It shakes Chrom down to his very essence, conjuring terror in him so potent he feels he might be sick with it.

“I am the Fell Dragon, Grima!” Grima spreads his wings. “Naga! Let’s finish this.”

When gods clash, even the heavens tremble. Naga and Grima meet and the unreal becomes real and what is real is no longer. Chrom sees two dragons tearing at each other’s flesh, he sees Robin facing down a tall woman with a waterfall of green hair, he sees an infinite darkness where indistinct shapes writhe and coil around each other, flickering in and out of existence as quickly as firefly lights. 

Teeth close on necks and from the wounds spill halves of jaws and lolling tongues coated with barbs. Eyes split open like rotten fruit and disgorge ribbons of pulsing flesh that bind grasping limbs with too many joints, nails rake furrows in godly skin, and they are as one, two deities wrapped around each other in battle. Their bodies shimmer through thousands of forms, ever changing and chimerical, always adapting to the threat their foe poses; here on this higher plane, Naga and Grima have shed the draconic forms the physical one imposes upon them, and they fight as they truly are.

(Robin’s hands sizzle with otherworldly lightning, casting his face in sharp relief. He is beautiful. 

The woman strikes first. She draws her hands apart, and in the empty space she creates bloom iridescent streams of magic that soar through the air and burst in burning waves of light.)

Naga’s chamber no longer exists in any meaningful sense of the word. Chrom, somehow, still does. He curls in on himself and covers his eyes like a child afraid of the dark, but the battle still intrudes; not even sightlessness can truly protect him now from what the dragon Naga truly is. Calling her divine and calling her a goddess are just like the enucleation of her attendants: a way to protect humans from the truth. 

Grima is, and always has been, a monster; but so is Naga. This is, Chrom realises, what Grima was driving at when he asked Chrom, But is that all? Grima is Naga, reflected and inverted by the silver surface of a carnival mirror. 

(Chrom knows the expression on Robin’s face, the one he’s wearing as he bobs and weaves and hurls bolts of sizzling electricity to disperse geysers of water, tosses orbs of sickly purple flame to melt pillars of ice, and bends shadows to devour light.

It’s joy.)

A scream radiates across the planes of existence, and Chrom feels like his head is going to split in two. The sound is like nothing he’s ever heard. Hands pressed to his ears do nothing to diminish it; the scream goes on and on, drilling into his skull, until he can only wonder how to end himself to make the agony stop. 

(A burst of light burns half of Robin’s face away, but he’s there, right in front of the woman with the long green hair. He calls a spike of lightning to his hand, hefts it like a dagger, and drives it home.

The woman lets out a soundless gasp. Her fingers curl around the spike buried in her stomach as she falls to her knees, shock plain on her beautiful face.

Robin rams the next bolt of energy through her eye. She goes utterly still, and then slowly, slowly, falls backwards, like a lifeless doll.)

At the very moment Chrom sees the woman die, whatever has been protecting him from the chaos outside evaporates. His skin boils and his eyes are seared from their sockets as the outer darkness consumes him.

His last conscious thought is a name. 

_Robin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did Naga say to Grima? I know, but I'll never tell.
> 
> This chapter was the hardest for me to write because it had to, in my mind, be at least somewhat believable that Chrom should let Grima go. And I for the longest time couldn't figure out a way to make that happen—until I, like Chrom, finally made the connexion between those two lines of dialogue. It's interesting how characters can sometimes write the story for you, isn't it?


	9. Apotheosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic violence ahead.

Chrom awakens to the sound of humming and a hand caressing his hair. He opens his eyes, squinting against the light, and sees a sky heavy with clouds. 

His head is resting on someone’s lap, but when he tries to see who it is, he finds he hasn’t the energy to do much of anything except move his eyes. He is exhausted in a way he’s never been before—so drained of energy, even moving a single finger seems like an impossible effort. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Robin leans over him. He looks even worse than Chrom feels: a wound across his hairline is bleeding a liquid that may well be blood but at the same time seems too dark to be, and his skin has gone ashen and corpselike. There’s a stiffness to Robin’s expression that suggests he’s in quite a lot of pain.

“Robin?” Chrom groans. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

There’s a pause. And then Grima grins in a way that’s more like an animalistic baring of teeth than any expression a human might make. “Not quite,” he says.

“Grima?” Chrom repeats dumbly. “Why are you…what are you…?”

“I am resting,” Grima says. “You know, it took a lot of work to stitch you back together again, Chrom. At first I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” His hand resumes its track through Chrom’s hair, much in the same way Robin used to touch him. “But you are more durable than you look.”

“You saved my life?” Chrom asks. “You…saved my life.”

Grima’s soft laugh reminds Chrom of late mornings spent in bed with Robin—it’s a decidedly strange feeling. 

“Of course I did,” replies Grima. “My vessel cherishes you very much, so I just couldn’t let you die.”

Grima lets that stand for a moment or two, and then his face cracks into a smile. He snickers, amused with himself altogether too much. “Actually, that’s a lie—which you probably guessed, Chrom, because you’re so very…clever. I brought you back because you’ve been so useful to me. I thought you deserved a little reward.”

“Useful,” Chrom says. “Thanks, I guess. I did let you go, didn’t I?”

“And not only that,” Grima says. “Naga wasted so much of her power trying to protect you during our battle. If she hadn’t been so distracted, she might’ve won.” He curls a strand of Chrom’s hair around a finger. “How does it feel, Chrom? To be the reason your goddess is dead?”

“What?” Chrom makes a vain attempt to push himself up, and falls back, dark spots dancing in his vision. “Naga is…?”

The memories click back into place, accompanied by a splitting headache: the green-haired woman and Robin, duelling with magic. The desperate clawing of two gods at each other’s inhuman flesh. That scream—Naga dying, that must’ve been.

“Dead, dead, dead,” Grima says. He looks out over the flattened, barren earth all around them. “At long last. There is nothing to stand in my way. This world is mine to mould as I see fit.”

Chrom stares up at him, at that smirking mouth, at the naked hunger that does not sit well at all on Robin’s boyish features. And in an instant, he realises just how foolish he’s been. How _much_ Grima had used him.

He feels like crying, but at the same time, too tired, too empty to cry. The enormity of his mistake is too much to bear. His thoughts from earlier come back to taunt him: He’d told Robin, once, that he’d never change his trusting nature—how would they have met otherwise?

And now—

He swallows, and says: “Robin?”

Grima lowers his gaze down to Chrom again, a not-so-benevolent god heeding his worshipper. “Yes, Chrom?”

Chrom wonders how he hadn’t seen it before—the malice that shades every aspect of Grima’s affect, like ink stains on a clean white tablecloth. In his desperation to see Robin again, he had willingly strapped on blinders and taken the bit of Grima’s reins into his mouth.

It’s kind of freeing, to come to the realisation there is absolutely nothing more he can do—that there is no possible way to fight on against the coming storm. It’s all out of his hands now.

“I love you,” Chrom says. “I just wanted you to know that.”

“How sweet,” replies Grima, and he raises his hand and plunges it into Chrom’s chest. 

Chrom stiffens, unable to breathe as a feeling of terrible intrusion rocks him to his very core. Grima’s hand slips through his ribs and curls around—something, something not physically part of him but part of him nonetheless. 

Then Grima stills, and as Chrom, fighting to breathe, watches him, Grima’s lip curls, exposing gritted teeth. Cords stand out on his neck, as though he is locked in some fierce struggle.

“No. _Never_.”

In the high-ceilinged room with walls of stone, the Plegian boy, perched on the dragon’s table, rolls his eyes. “Robin, this struggle is futile. In the end, I will win. You know this. I know this.”

“I don’t care,” Robin growls. “I’ll fight you every step of the way if I have to. You won’t touch him.”

“I’m not going to hurt him.”

“Not going to hurt him?” Robin repeats. “I thought you were better at lying than that, Grima. Of course you’re going to hurt him—you’re going to turn Chrom into one of your servants. A Risen. I think that qualifies.”

“Hardly,” Grima sighs. “In fact,” he adds, honing his irritated expression into a smile, “I think what I’m doing goes above and beyond my promise to you not to hurt Chrom.” He hops off the table and sweeps towards Robin. “As a Risen,” he says, “he will never feel pain again. As a Risen, he will be like us. Unchanging. Ageless. Forever your Chrom.”

Robin’s resistance wavers for the tiniest slice of time, and Grima feels it. He pushes back against Robin, and Robin’s forced to his knees in front of him; his strength is slowly fading, and as they both know, Grima is starting to come out on top in their battle for control of their body. Grinning, Grima reaches out and cups Robin’s face with his hands.

“That thought pleased you, didn’t it?” Grima says. “For just one moment, you allowed yourself to imagine it: Chrom, at our side, forever.” He hums a chuckle, winds his fingers through Robin’s hair. “You’d really give up the world for a single person? What an awful thing to do, Robin. And you call me a monster.”

“I’m not like you,” Robin says defiantly. “I’m not.”

“You don’t sound too certain of that. And I do wonder why that is. Perhaps it’s because you didn’t interfere during my battle with Naga? You could have—I know you could have—but you didn’t.”

“That’s because—”

“—because you were worried about what I’d do to Chrom if I won despite your interference, isn’t that right?” Grima takes hold of Robin’s face, plants a kiss on his forehead. “Robin, Robin, Robin. Naga died and you did nothing.”

Robin falters again, for a fatal handful of seconds, and this time Grima takes full advantage of the opportunity. Robin’s resistance collapses as Grima brings his full strength to bear. 

Grima’s face twists into a wordless snarl and Chrom finally understands what must be happening. He wants to help Robin, but by the time he thinks to try talking to him, Grima’s face is already starting to clear, like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.

The soft smile that touches Grima’s face is so close to Robin’s that Chrom can’t help but give in to hope again, that cruel emotion that deceives, tricks, blinds. What is hope, anyway? The denial of reality, and for it the substitution of another, more preferable, more palatable one.

If he’s going to die, he might as well be happy in his last moments.

“Robin, a–are you—?” he forces out, despite the pain pulsing through him from Grima’s hand inside him, and he truly, sincerely believes that it is he.

Grima laughs. “No,” he says, and from Chrom takes something that glows and flickers: a pale flame, white with a sunny golden tint. It sits in the palm of his hand, casting his face in sharp relief. His mouth opens, and it opens, a gaping dark maw into which the glowing flame falls.

And Chrom,

he’s

so

cold—

=

Naga is dead. Emm’s dead, too, and Grima isn’t ever bringing her back. He hasn’t seen Frederick and Lissa in months.

But Chrom doesn’t care about that. Chrom doesn’t care about much of anything, anymore. Just about Robin, with his six pretty eyes, like precious rubies, with his six soft wings, like those of a bird. Robin, who’s the beginning and end of his personal universe.

His skin is the ashen grey of someone freshly dead, and his eyes glow a dull, unhealthy red. Talking doesn’t come easy to him anymore, and when he does say something, all he knows how to say is Robin’s name. So he doesn’t talk often. 

He’s standing by Robin’s side up on one of the palace balconies, looking out over the remains of a country blasted out of existence by a god running high on the fumes of victory. Up in the skies, far in the distance, dragons gather, like the massing clouds of an approaching storm. Naga is dead, and they hunger for vengeance.

“Look at them, Chrom,” Robin says, a smirk like the curving edge of a sickle on his lips. “The fools.”

Chrom, obediently, looks. 

“They are less than a shadow of their mother,” Robin says. “If I could break her, then I’ll have no trouble breaking them.”

Robin steps forward, climbs up onto the balcony railing, and spreads his wings. Before he can go, though, Chrom catches his sleeve. Because if Robin goes, Robin could die. If Robin dies, then Chrom—

Robin hunkers down on the railing so they’re almost eye to eye. With delicate fingers, he tucks an errant lock of Chrom’s hair behind his ear. “Worried?” he says. “I’m surprised you can feel that much.”

Chrom doesn’t understand what that means. He can understand simple orders and straightforward phrases, like “kill any humans you find”, but most of what Robin says doesn’t make any sense to him at all. But he doesn’t really care about that, either—he likes the sound of Robin’s voice.

“Protect the palace,” Robin tells him. “I will return by nightfall. Understand?”

Reluctantly, but aware that he’s been given an order, Chrom releases him. Robin smiles, turns on his heel, balancing effortlessly on the railing, and takes a flying leap off of it; and from the spot where he fell, a dragon rises, many times larger than the palace itself.

Already, Chrom pines for Robin. He wants him back by his side. He aches for the warmth.

Lost and alone, he wanders through the palace, through rooms with their sides kicked in, past the front doors dangling from their hinges like a caved-in mouth, spitting teeth in the form of wooden splinters and iron joints. The odour of decaying flesh and rotting blood permeates the halls, but Chrom is inured to it, inured to the piles of corpses—humans and the warped products of the blight alike—in many of the rooms.

He’d helped create some of those piles, had added to them during the weeks and months after Robin killed Naga. Robin had given him a sword—a beautiful construction in silver and gold that looked more decorative than deadly yet was able to shear heads from bodies and open stomachs with little difficulty—and he put it to good use. Because Robin was Robin, and Robin was the only thing he needed. 

Robin praised him so for his deeds. “My dear Chrom,” he said, as he reattached one of Chrom’s arms after Chrom had nearly been bested. “My sweet Chrom,” he whispered into the shell of Chrom’s ear, as they stood before dead bodies just starting to cool. “All mine,” he murmured, as on the throne he accepted Chrom into his dark embrace.

Chrom shudders as the memories come unbidden. Robin, kissing him like a lover. Robin, burying his teeth in the curve of Chrom’s neck, chuckling, “It’d be more fun if you could actually feel something.”

He feeds on Chrom, sometimes—not that pain can touch Chrom any longer—and Chrom loves it. In this way, by giving up his flesh and thick, ashen blood, he can express his devotion to his one true god. Robin always puts him back together again afterwards, anyway.

_Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them._

Chrom touches his lips with one cold hand. “Robin,” he whispers into the stagnant silence of a dead world. “Robin…”

Eventually, he finds himself back in the bedroom they share. The fire Robin lit is still going, and it illuminates a couch stripped of its cushions, a denuded bed, and a sprawling nest on the floor. Chrom doesn’t sleep, really, but Robin does, and Chrom likes to stay close.

He presses as close as he can to the fading flames. With the heat this near, he can almost pretend Robin is here—Robin, who radiates warmth and life like a captive flame. Chrom clings to that warmth. 

Chrom sits in front of the fire until the wood, spitting out its last breath of sparks, collapses into charcoal, and the flames are nothing more than glimmering embers. The palace convulses around him, like an animal going through its death throes, as in the skies above a god ascendant tears down the old order.

Eventually, it grows quiet, and still Chrom stays by the hearth. He sits there until even the embers are extinguished, and only moonlight comes through the bedroom windows, and the cold and dark press in again.

Footsteps behind him. Then, Robin’s voice, and light.

“Here you are, Chrom.”

Robin’s leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, a tiny orb of flame hovering by one shoulder. At first glance, he seems all right; but his face is dyed with a sickly pallor, and his lips are so pale as to be almost colourless. A thread of something dark traces down his cheek from the corner of one of his eyes.

Chrom’s by Robin’s side in an instant. “Robin,” he says, reaching for him, crowding too close. 

“It’s remarkable you still remember that name,” Robin says. His eyes flutter shut as Chrom wipes away the fluid on his cheek; the flame flickers out, and for a second Robin teeters on the brink of collapse. Only Chrom’s hands on his shoulders stop Robin from falling to the floor.

Chrom guides Robin back to the pile of cushions and blankets near the hearth and settles him there. When Chrom sits at his side, Robin lays his head on Chrom’s shoulder.

“Victory is mine, Chrom,” Robin says. Six red eyes look into the darkness. “Naga’s spawn will plague us no longer. Humanity will plague us no longer. The world is as it should be. Singular. Perfect.”

Robin’s voice soothes Chrom, and so when Robin lays a hand flat on his chest, he obeys. He lays back, uncaring when something snaps with a dry crack in one of his wings. After all, pain does not touch him.

Grima hoists himself on top of Chrom, straddling him at the waist. Stripped of his soul like a pitted fruit, Chrom is all juicy, pliant flesh. And Grima, exhausted from his battle against Naga’s children, is in need of sustenance.

“Robin,” Chrom says again, as Grima opens his shirt, exposing the Exalt’s chest, his stomach, the delectable slope of his neck. His nails scratch at Chrom’s forehead when he pushes his hair back.

Robin has not spoken a word for months. Grima had hoped this would be the case when he made Chrom into what he is now. Robin, poor Robin, had built his entire life around Chrom, the first person to offer him an escape from life under Validar—and now, Chrom is gone. Only his corpse remains, animated by some lingering scraps of consciousness and kept on this side of the border of life and death by Grima’s power.

Grima’s dominion over the planet is complete, and those who might say Chrom is a privileged exception to the rule no longer exist. An exception, perhaps, but one that Grima will allow. Chrom is a willing devotee and a loyal servant. He kills when Grima wants killing done, and worships Grima in the only way he knows how: by offering himself, body entire, to his god.

“My lovely Chrom,” Grima says, in between mouthfuls of flesh and cold blood. “Veins full to bursting with Naga’s blood.”

Chrom can no longer speak—the condition of his throat leaves him in no position to—but he tugs Grima closer all the same with the arm that yet works. With his tongue, Grima probes the gaping wounds in Chrom’s throat and all across his left shoulder, lapping at the blood he finds there. He cleans Chrom’s collarbone until it glistens white, and then levers it free and cracks it open to get at the marrow inside. 

Chrom’s working hand strokes Grima’s hair, automatically, rhythmically, as Grima moves downwards. A gentle press of Robin’s lips to the centre of Chrom’s chest leads to a generous application of teeth; Chrom offers Grima his heart, and more than one of his ribs, and his kidneys, too. 

When Grima has had enough, he presses close against the mess he’d made of Chrom, and kisses him, tasting more blood as his sharp teeth cut open Chrom’s lower lip. Chrom responds sluggishly, and Grima laughs into Chrom’s mouth before tearing up his tongue by the roots.

Then, re-invigorated, power sizzling under his skin, Grima sets to work repairing his little worshipper. He coaxes torn and frayed muscles to spin themselves together again, pushes Chrom’s body to regrow organs of which it had been so brutally deprived, crafts new bones from the blueprints of the old. With hands still stained with spilled blood, Grima pats everything into place, and spreads a sheet of skin over it all. 

Full and content, Grima allows the rejuvenated Chrom to shift into a sitting position, allows Chrom to crush him against his chest and groan Robin’s name into the hollow of his neck as their crotches grind together. At the end of the world, there is only this: the lord of a dead world rutting against his alpha and his omega. 

Grima sees that it is good; and he closes his eyes; and at last, at long last, he rests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually, Chapter 8's title was a lie. But is anyone _really_ surprised that Grima turned out to be the villain? No? That's what I thought. (Also, parts of this chapter may remind you of Chapter 5—looks like Chrom's the one who got the premonition this time, not Robin.)
> 
> How much of what Grima told Chrom was true? How much of what Grima did was an act, and how much of it was sincere? I'll let you decide.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
